Md Readul Mahmud, Asma Begum, Farhad Alam

Abstract: A novel split-and-recombined (SAR) micromixer namely ‘(Y-H)_αβ’ composed with a ‘Y’ and a ‘H’ shaped mixing unit is proposed. The proposed ‘(Y-H)_αβ’ micromixer is composed of four identical elements that are connected by angles α and β. The value of alpha (α) is varied from 0° to 90° to analyze the effect on mixing performance. Numerical analysis of fluid flow and mixing performance is conducted for miscible fluids, using Fluent 15 software for Reynolds numbers from 0.1 to 100. A well-known SAR mixer called ‘H-C’ is also analyzed for comparison. The numerical data shows that connecting angle α has a strong effect on the SAR process; the efficiency increases from 65% to 98% when alpha (α) changes from 0° to 45° at Re=100. The ‘(Y-H)_αβ’ mixer shows notably lower pressure drop than the ‘H-C’ mixer irrespective of the value of connecting angle α and Reynolds numbers. The proposed mixer has a significantly lower Mixing Energy Cost (MEC) compared to the ‘(H-C)’ mixer.

Keywords: CFD, Micromixer, Mixing Energy Cost (MEC), Pressure drop, SAR.

Date Published: March 24, 2025
DOI: 10.11159/jffhmt.2025.010

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