Simultaneously Developing Flow in Microchannels Under Pulsating Inlet Flow Condition
Tapas K. Nandi and Himadri Chattopadhyay
The present work investigates the effect of inlet pulsation on the transport process in micro-channels. The flow was both thermally and hydrodynamically developing while the channel walls were kept at a uniform temperature. The inlet velocity varies sinusoidally in time for a range of dimensionless frequencies (St = 1, 5, 10) up to an amplitude of 0.8. The transient solution of two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equation was obtained using the SIMPLE algorithm with the momentum interpolation technique of Rhie and Chow. The simulations were performed in the laminar regime within the Reynolds number range between 0.1–100 for both plane and axi-symmetric channels. The results of pulsating flow simulations had been analysed and compared with steady flow simulations. It is observed that the effect of pulsation is significant only at low Reynolds number (about 20) beyond which pulsation has little effect.
Keywords: Simultaneously Developing, Pulsating Flow, Heat Transfer, Laminar, Microchannel, Numerical.