Surface roughness influences on the behaviour of flow inside microchannels

Abstract

Abstract. This work discusses influence of the surface roughness on the behavior of liquids flowing inside microchannels. By measuring the flow profile using the micro-PIV technique, the flow of water inside two rectangular microchannels of different wall roughness and in a circular smooth microchannel was studied. Comparisons were made among the experimental results, showing that a metrological approach concerning surface characteristics of microdevices is required to ensure reliability of the measurements for flow analyses in microfluidic processes. IntroductionA reliable measurement for describing details of the fluid dynamics in microscale has been very challenger for scientists and for manufacturers of microfluidic devices. In very tiny geometries, the flow behavior is not well represented by the equations and hypotheses which are commonly applied to flow in macrodomain, for instance, Navier-Stokes equations and boundary conditions. So, it can affect, strongly, the performance and flow process control analyses. As metrological approach in microfluidic studies plays very important role for theoretical, experimental and computational developments devoted to provide reliability on achievements about such theme, technology advances in this field also has been driven by the need of ensuring confidence on the measurement for characterizing microflows. Besides, discussions, investigations and developments aiming metrological traceability chain establishment for flow measure in microscale have received attention from NMIs [1].

Chemical Etching Treatment of Polydimethylsiloxane for Smoothing Microchannel Surface

“…Surface roughness of microchannel side wall has been focused as one of the important factors in microfluidic devices in such specific applications of heat exchangers and thermal management systems using microfluidic technology [1][2][3][4][5]. The surface roughness of the microchannel side wall often causes fluctuation of flow inside the microchannel and effects convective heat transfer [2].…”

An Isotropic Areal Filter Based on High-Order Thin-Plate Spline for Surface Metrology

“…Surface quality and surface structures have significant influences on many properties and behaviors of manufactured products, such as friction, wear, precision, fitting, anti-fatigue and anti-corrosion characteristics of machined parts [1]- [4], flow and boundary slip of microfluidics [5], [6] and wetting of structured surfaces [7], which makes measuring and analyzing surface topographies of important meaning. Extracting different frequency features using filters can also be used for topography identifications [8].…”