Capillary flow in open microchannels with rectangular cross-sections: a numerical study
ORAL
Abstract
Liquids in microchannels are driven by capillary force and spontaneously penetrate into the channels. Predicting and controlling such capillary-driven flow is important in various industrial fields (e.g., high-performance heat exchangers).
It is known that capillary flow is well described by the Lucas-Washburn theory. However, for open microchannels, the applicability of the Lucas-Washburn theory is not yet explored due to the existence of free liquid-gas interfaces, and remains as a challenge.
In this study, numerical simulations of capillary flow in open microchannels with rectangular cross-sections are performed to analyze the structures of liquid-gas interfaces and liquid flow. It is shown that the present simulation results fairly agree with the existing experimental observations and theoretical predictions.
It is known that capillary flow is well described by the Lucas-Washburn theory. However, for open microchannels, the applicability of the Lucas-Washburn theory is not yet explored due to the existence of free liquid-gas interfaces, and remains as a challenge.
In this study, numerical simulations of capillary flow in open microchannels with rectangular cross-sections are performed to analyze the structures of liquid-gas interfaces and liquid flow. It is shown that the present simulation results fairly agree with the existing experimental observations and theoretical predictions.
*This work was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP16K05036, JP19K11999. This research used computational resources of the Fugaku computer provided by the RIKEN Center for Computational Science through the HPCI System Research project (Project ID: hp200197, hp210121).
–
Presenters
-
Junya Onishi
- RIKEN Center for Computational Science