Measurement and modeling of pulsatile flow in microchannel

An experimental study of pulsatile flow in microchannel is reported in this paper. Such a study is important because time-varying flows are frequently encountered in microdevices. The hydraulic diameter of the microchannel is 144 μm and deionized water is the working fluid. The pressure drop across the microchannel as a function of time is recorded, from which the average and r.m.s. pressure drops are obtained. The experiments have been performed in the quasi-steady flow regime for a wide range of flow rate, frequency of pulsations, and duty cycle. The results suggest that the pressure with pulsations lies between the minimum and maximum steady state pressure values. The average pressure drop with pulsation is approximately linear with respect to the flow rate. The theoretical expression for pressure has also been derived wherever possible and the experimental data is found to lie below the corresponding theoretical values. The difference with respect to the theoretical value increases with an increase in frequency and a decrease in flow rate, with a maximum difference of 32.7%. This is attributed to the small size of the microchannel. An increase in frequency of square waveform leads to a larger reduction in pressure drop as compared to rectangular waveform, irrespective of the duty cycle. The results can be interpreted with the help of a first-order model proposed here; the model results are found to compare well against the experimental results. A correlation for friction factor in terms of the other non-dimensional governing parameters is also proposed. Experimental study of mass-driven pulsatile flow in microchannel is being conducted for the first time at these scales and the results are of both fundamental and practical importance.