{"id":132,"date":"2016-08-07T11:00:29","date_gmt":"2016-08-07T15:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1409.mae.ncsu.edu\/cmpl\/?page_id=132"},"modified":"2018-02-22T16:08:33","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T21:08:33","slug":"nanofluidics-and-microfluidics","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mae.ncsu.edu\/cmpl\/research-projects\/nanofluidics-and-microfluidics\/","title":{"rendered":"Nanofluidics and Microfluidics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 align=\"justify\">Specific research include:<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Analysis and Review of Micro-Cooling and Lab-on-a-Chip Devices<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mae.ncsu.edu\/cmpl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/08\/nanoflow_clip_image014.jpg\" alt=\"nanoflow_clip_image014\" width=\"460\" height=\"330\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The demand for high-efficiency performance and compact design of devices in modern mechanical, chemical, and biomedical engineering puts a premium on effective microsystem cooling. Still, limited heat transfer rates can be one of the major obstacles for microsystems, which may generate significant heat fluxes. One way to overcome this difficulty is to use novel coolants with better thermal performance than convectional fluids such as oil, water, or ethylene glycol. For example, adding solid nanoparticles (NPs) to the liquids at low volume fractions creates a new type of fluid\u2013particle mixture that may substantially enhances heat transfer rates. Thus, the resulting nanofluid, that is, a dilute NP suspension in liquids, is deemed promising as a solution to the cooling problem of microsystems.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, small hydraulic diameter in microchannels limits the Reynolds number to a very small value, precluding turbulent dispersion. Hence, mixing process is limited by the small diffusion coefficients of the species and the dominance of viscous effects. Mixing of two fluid streams is an important microfluidic application since good mixing needs to be achieved quickly and within a reasonable channel length, without consuming much power. Lab-on-a-chip devices and DNA microarrays are examples of microfluidic applications in clinical diagnostics and targeted drug delivery systems.<\/p>\n<p>Hence we are interested in understanding and improving mixing and heat transfer in microfluidic and nanofluidic devices. Following are some of the research project examples:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Double-tube Heat Exchanger <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We investigated the\u00a0 double-tube heat exchanger configuration, as shown below, with hot water flowing in the annulus; cold nanofluid flowing in the inner tube exchanging heat with water through a copper tube wall in between. Our analysis confirmed that nanofluid flow yields higher heat transfer coefficient than pure water flow at the same Reynolds number and under the same pumping power, as can be seen in figure below. We demonstrated that under constant pumping powers, nanofluids still generate higher heat transfer coefficient than water, which suggests that the gain from increased thermal conductivity overweighs the loss from increased viscosity.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-225\" src=\"https:\/\/mae.ncsu.edu\/cmpl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/02\/DOuble_heat_exchanger-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"477\" height=\"292\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-226\" src=\"https:\/\/mae.ncsu.edu\/cmpl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/02\/DOuble_heat_exchanger1-600x276.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"817\" height=\"376\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mae.ncsu.edu\/cmpl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/02\/DOuble_heat_exchanger1-600x276.png 600w, https:\/\/mae.ncsu.edu\/cmpl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/02\/DOuble_heat_exchanger1.png 619w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 817px) 100vw, 817px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nanofluid Cooling of Concentration Photovoltaic\u2013Thermal (CPV\/T) Systems<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>New designs of dual concentration photovoltaic\u2013thermal (CPV\/T) systems can provide both electrical and thermal energy, while reducing solar cell material usage via optical techniques. The overall system efficiency can be improved by using advanced dual-purpose liquids with enhanced heat transfer characteristics, such as nanofluids.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-227\" src=\"https:\/\/mae.ncsu.edu\/cmpl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/02\/CPV.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"521\" height=\"271\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Nanofluids generate better heat transfer performances than the base fluids alone, due to higher thermal conductivities resulting from Brownian motion effects.\u00a0This means higher cell efficiencies (i.e., lower cell temperature) using nanofluid cooling. However, our results indicated that the\u00a0 this\u00a0 efficiency gain becomes smaller when the Reynolds number increases.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-228\" src=\"https:\/\/mae.ncsu.edu\/cmpl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/02\/CPV-eff.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"515\" height=\"446\" \/><\/p>\n<p>An effective method for\u00a0 operational and\/or geometrical optimization of thermal systems is by\u00a0minimization of the entropy generation. So to further improve the thermal system, one could study the\u00a0 the effect of the NP volume fraction, the inlet Reynolds number, the channel height, as well as the nanofluid inlet temperatures on the entropy generation due to both friction and heat transfer.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Y-shaped Sinusoidal Micro-channel<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As an example we investigated the\u00a0mixing and heat transfer between two nano-fluid streams in a Y-shaped sinusoidal micro-channel. Our simulations indicated that modifying the geometry with wavy walls and by taking advantage of the flow instabilities created by the modifieded geometry and pulsating flow, yields the highest degree of mixing and heat transfer within the listed constraints.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-218\" src=\"https:\/\/mae.ncsu.edu\/cmpl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/02\/ychannel.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"387\" height=\"361\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Schematic diagram of the\u00a0sinusoidal micro-channel.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-219\" src=\"https:\/\/mae.ncsu.edu\/cmpl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2018\/02\/Degree-of-mixing.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"319\" height=\"515\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Average degree of mixing along the outlet channel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Specific research include: Analysis and Review of Micro-Cooling and Lab-on-a-Chip Devices The demand for high-efficiency performance and compact design of devices in modern mechanical, chemical, and biomedical engineering puts&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"parent":15,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-132","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nanofluidics and Microfluidics - Computational Multi-Physics Laboratory<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mae.ncsu.edu\/cmpl\/research-projects\/nanofluidics-and-microfluidics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nanofluidics and Microfluidics - Computational Multi-Physics Laboratory\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; 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