Effective mixing in a short serpentine split and recombination micromixer
Abstract A micromixer with a three dimensional serpentine split and recombination structure is proposed to provide a high mixing index in a short length, even at low Reynolds numbers. The fluid flow and mixing performance were analyzed numerically using three dimensional Navier Stokes equations and the convection diffusion equation for mass transport in a Reynolds number range of 0.1 200. The mixing performance is represented by the mixing index, which is defined using the mass fraction variance of mixing fluids in a plane. The overall mixing performance of the proposed micromixer is compared with that of previous micromixers. The effects of the number of mixing units on the mixing performance were estimated. A parametric study was performed using five geometric parameters of the micromixer. The proposed micromixer shows mixing indices larger than 0.87 throughout the Reynolds number range in a short length of 1500 mm, which is hardly achieved in previous micromixers.