Chemical Engineering Science 123 (2015) 197206

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Chemical Engineering Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ces

Numerical evaluation of stresses acting on particles in high-pressure

microsystems using a Reynolds stress model
S. Beinert n, T. Gothsch, A. Kwade
Institute for Particle Technology, TU Braunschweig, Volkmaroder Strasse 5, 38104 Braunschweig, Germany

H I G H L I G H T S

We investigate the multiphase ow elds of different micro-channels by CFD.

A new model to calculate acting stresses on particles was used.
Based on the Reynolds stress tensor and a stationary particle tracking a quantication of acting stresses was possible.
Effect of steam and cavitation was reproduced.
Peak stress seems to be the leading breakage mechanism in turbulent microchannels.

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 28 August 2014
Received in revised form
17 October 2014
Accepted 22 October 2014
Available online 30 October 2014

In the present study a model was developed which enables to calculate the stress acting on particles
induced by the uid ow in microchannels. Computational uid dynamics (CFD) was used to simulate
the ow eld in ve different microchannel geometries. With the help of a Reynolds-stress model and a
stationary particle tracking a quantication of stresses in different geometries at varying pressure
differences is possible. Furthermore, the effect of cavitation which occurs if the uid expands to ambient
pressure was investigated. The mass ow rates determined by the simulations are in good agreement
with the ones determined experimentally. Except for the z-channel the computed stresses are in good
agreement with previously conducted dispersion experiments. Additionally, the computed uid stress
was compared with the calculated Kolmogorov length scale to validate the results.
& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Simulations
Multiphase
Reynolds-stress model
Stress analysis
Dispersing

1. Introduction
In the last couple of years the impact and inuence of
numerical methods for process design and optimisation largely
increased. Simulations are used to get a better understanding
of different processes, for the prediction of the results or as a
additional tool to investigate acting mechanisms. Due to the
increased computational power new, more detailed simulations
can be conducted which improved the understanding of unit
processes. Especially, if experimental methods are not applicable
or if they are expensive (in time and costs) simulations become
more and more the method of choice. In this work simulations
were used as they are (often) faster, reliable and enable information which cannot be fetched out of experimental investigations.
They were used to compute different types of microchannel

Corresponding author. Tel.: 49 531 391 9621; fax: 49 531 391 9633.
E-mail address: s.beinert@tu-braunschweig.de (S. Beinert).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2014.10.042
0009-2509/& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

geometries and to identify the dominant stress mechanism for

the breakage of agglomerates or aggregates (in the following
named particles).
The usage of microchannels in chemical and pharmaceutical
engineering offers a couple of advantages, like high energy input
per volume, high efciency, narrow residence time distributions
and reproducible results. As nanoparticles have become more and
more important for industrial applications the microchannels are
used to produce particles with a dened size and a dened,
narrow size distribution. As the geometry of these devices is very
exible investigations to optimise the geometry are required.
The number of possible designs is extremely high and, hence,
simulations are required to get a understanding of the leading
breakup mechanism. If the mechanism for the breakage of the
particles in a microchannel is known the geometry can be adapted
in a way which supports this mechanism.
Wengeler and Nirschl (2007) and Wengeler (2007) investigated
the dispersion behaviour in nozzles with a circular cross-sectional
area. They used a stress model with four different kinds of stresses

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S. Beinert et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 123 (2015) 197206

(compressive, shear, tensile and turbulent stress) for a twodimensional simulation to evaluate the acting stress. This model
was enhanced to three dimensions and extended with a stationary
particle tracking to enable a quantication of different microchannel geometries (see Beinert et al., 2012). Furthermore, in these
previous published results a k model was used to calculate the
ow elds and compute the stresses acting on the particles.
As the dispersion of solid particles in microchannels is a
relatively new process and not yet common in industrial application there is not much research done on it. Many research projects
were done in the eld of (laminar) mixing and chemical reactions
in micro-devices and particle laden gas ows. The laminar mixing
of different species and a possible reaction is based on the
diffusion process and the interface which is very large in such
micro-devices. Particle laden uid ows, especially turbulent
ows, are very common for diesel injection, soliduid transportation or uidized beds.
1.1. Mixing and chemical reactions in micro- and macro-devices
Among others, micro-devices are used for continuous mixing
and/or for continuous chemical reactions. Due to the fact that
laminar ows are volitional only low uid velocities, low forces
and low pressures occur. Therefore, established experimental and
numerical methods for laminar ow can be used to characterise
and improve the geometry of the micro-devices. Pennella et al.
(2012) investigated a new designed micromixer by the help of
particle image velocimetry (PIV) and computational uid
dynamics (CFD). They showed that the current methods can be
used to largely improve the geometry in terms of mixing quality,
costs and energy input. On the other hand the micro-scale of
reactive ows was investigated. For example Porta et al. (2012)
looked at the global reaction rate and the spacetime distributions
in dependency of dimensionless quantities like Peclet or Damkoehler number.
In the work of Makowski et al. (2012) large eddy simulations
(LES) were used to calculate the mixing process of particles in a
rectangular channel reactor. The results were compared with
different simulations and experimental data. They showed that
for high Reynolds numbers and low concentration the k model
offers similar results. With decreasing Reynolds number and
higher concentration large scale inhomogeneities and non-linear
effects have to be taken into account and, therefore, the usage of a
LES is required.
Similar investigations were performed in Gradl et al. (2006)
and Gradl and Peukert (2009). They investigated a t-mixer with
the help of experimental and numerical methods. They used
coupled direct numerical simulations (DNS) and population balance equations (PBE) to model the inuence on the resulting
particle size distribution. With the help of a derived micro-mixing
model they were able to predict the particle size distribution in
the precipitation process. For unstable conditions they extended
their coupling with the DLVO theory which improves the possibilities to stabilise the production of particles.

be used to calculate micro- and macro-time scales (compare the

work of Wang and Manhart, 2012).
(Gui et al., 2010) simulated the particlevortex interaction in
turbulent, swirling jets with the help of DNS and studied the
inuence of the particles on a plane jet in Gui et al. (2013). They
showed that the DNS is a good method to simulate those interactions if the Reynolds number is not to high due to the rapidly
increased computational costs. Furthermore, they pointed out that
for high volume fractions of the dispersed phase the two-way
interactions between the uid and the particles have to be taken
into account.
1.3. Stress mechanism in dispersion processes
A general overview of the acting stresses on particles in a uid
is given in Raasch (1961) and a general overview of dispersion
experiments in different dispersing devices is given by Schilde
et al. (2010, 2011).
Investigations of dispersion and aggregation behaviour of particles in non-uniform shear ows were performed and described by
Masuda et al. (2013b) (backward facing step) and Masuda et al.
(2013a) (parallel plates). These investigations were performed for
low Reynolds numbers and two-dimensional ow simulations. They
introduced a model which enables the prediction of size distribution
of particle clusters (based on coagulation and breakup) and compared the gained results with experimental data.
Rotorstator devices are often used for the production of dispersions or emulsions as they produce high shear stresses. Jasiska et al.
(2013, 2014) simulated the three-dimensional ow in a rotor stator
with the k model to predict the power input and turbulence
within the ow and/or linked it with the population balance
equations to predict the droplet size distribution over time.
CFD coupled with the discrete element method (DEM) can be
used to evaluate the stress acting on agglomerates in an pharmaceutical dry powder inhaler. Tong et al. (2013) used this approach
to identify agglomerate-device impacts as the dominant stress
mechanism beside multiple impacts between agglomerates. A
similar approach to describe the dispersion progress in a stirred
media mill is shown in Beinert et al. (2014). Coupled CFD-DEM
simulations were performed to evaluate the contacts between
grinding media to estimate with the help of PBE the particle
size distribution over time.

2. Methods and models

In the rst section the microchannels, experimental set-up
and material properties are described. Further information on
the experimental part of this project are given in Gothsch et al.
(2011, 2014). The second part describes the software and used
boundary conditions while the third part describes the turbulent
model. The fourth part denotes how the acting stress is calculated,
while the last section takes the effect of turbulence on particles
into account.
2.1. Experimental set-up

1.2. Particle laden ows

In contrast to the work shown above a lot of investigations have
taken place in the eld of particle laden turbulent ows in nonmicro-devices. In Messa et al. (2013, 2014) different process parameters for turbulent ows were computed and compared with
experimental data. They compared their computed results based on
a turbulence model including physical mechanisms with experimentally measured pressure drops, solid volume fractions or spatial
particle distributions and particle velocities. Furthermore, DNS can

A uid was pumped through the microchannels (containing

particles) with a pressure difference up to p 500 bar and
expanded to ambient pressure or into a pressure vessel at various
pressures. These microchannels were manufactured by the Institute for Microtechnology of TU Braunschweig (compare Lesche
et al., 2011). The pressure in the vessel is called backpressure
while the difference between the inlet and the outlet is called
pressure or pressure difference. The backpressure experiments
were performed to investigate the inuence of cavitation. Two

S. Beinert et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 123 (2015) 197206

199

particles with the radius of the agglomerates r a 115 nm (the

mass-weighted measured median particle size is x50 230 nm,
compare Gothsch et al., 2011) and the radius of the primary
particle r p 13 nm (taken from producers data sheet) is

d  3 

r
a H2 O a
 Al2 O3  H2 O
rp
2179 kg=m3 :

Fig. 1. Geometries of the four microchannels of the 1st generation (upper four) and
the orice channel of the 2nd generation (lowest one).

Table 1
Properties of used materials.
Density (kg/m3)

Viscosity (Pa s)

Vapour pressure (Pa)

Watera
Steama
Al2O3b

997.05
0.023
3270

8.901  10  4
9.867  10  6

3230

Values taken from VDI (2013).

Values taken from producers data sheet.

different types of experiments were used to compare the results

with the numerical gained data: mass ow measurements (with or
without backpressure) and dispersing experiments. These results
were performed in ve different microchannels which are shown
in Fig. 1. The upper four geometries are microchannels of older
designs which were investigated in previous works. The acting
stresses based on a k model were computed (compare Beinert
et al., 2012) and are used in this work to evaluate the new model.
As the previous experimental results showed that the orice
channel was the most effective one, a new geometry (the lowest
one in Fig. 1) was fabricated in silicon and stainless steel to gain
higher pressures. All microchannels of the rst generation offer a
height of h 68 m while the second generation offers a height of
h 50 m.
In order to simulate the ow in a correct manner material
properties have to be known. In Table 1 all required material
properties are listed. For the dispersion experiment aluminium oxide
s
Al2O3 (Aeroxide AluC, Evonik) produced by pyrolysis was used.
The solid density of aluminium oxide (Al2O3) cannot be used as
the particle's density. They consist of primary particles which are
formed to aggregates (solid strong bonds) and/or agglomerates
(solid or liquid weak bonds) with a fractal shape due to the
pyrolysis production process. This shape can be quantied by the
fractal dimension d. According to Stiess (2009) the fractal dimension is dened as
n

d
ra
;
rp

where n is the number of primary particles, ra the radius of

gyration of the agglomerate or aggregate and rp the radius of the
primary particles. A fractal dimension of d 1 represents a row of
primary particles while a fractal dimension d 3 represents a solid
sphere. This relation can be used to calculate the volume ratio of
solid v within a sphere with the radius ra:

This density was used to depict the shape of the agglomerates

as only a spherical drag law was used for the stationary particle
tracking. The reduced density is comparable to a higher drag
coefcient which is caused by the fractal dimension of the
agglomerates.
2.2. Numerical set-up

Material

d  3
ra
:
rp

2
s

The fractal dimension of aluminium oxide (Aeroxide AluC,

Evonik, was used, too) was determined as d 2.7 (compare
Capitaine and Hill, 2012). Therefore, the density of spherical
particles which represents the investigated aluminium oxide

The simulations were performed with the commercial software

s
package ANSYSs Fluent 14.0.0 based on block structured meshes
s
created with ANSYS ICEM CFDs 14.0. The mesh of the microchannels of the 2nd generation is resolved ner to improve the
quality of the simulations (four million cells increased to seven
million cells). To reduce computational cost the symmetry of
microchannels was taken into account. As turbulence model a
Reynolds-stress model was used. The pressure difference between
inlet and outlet was specied and the uid ow was calculated.
Due to the fact that the uid expands to different pressures
including ambient pressure cavitation occurred. To include the
effect of cavitation the mixture model was used and as interaction
between steam and water the ZwartGerberBelamri model was
applied. The simulations were transient to enable non-steady
behaviour of the different microchannels. If a stationary value
occurred a stationary particle tracking was conducted to measure
acting stresses, uid and particle velocity (hence, the relative
velocity) and volume fraction of surrounding steam. To quantify
the dispersing behaviour of the different geometries the seeding
points were spatial distributed all over the inlet (distance between
two seeding points: d  8:7 m, leading to 10,201 seeding points
over the entire inlet). The normal uid velocity component at
every seeding point was used to weight the tracked values. The
stresses acting on the particles were calculated by variables of the
uid as described in the following.
The time step size varied between t 2  10  9 2  10  8 s
depending on the pressure difference p as it is nearly proportional to the maximum velocity. The Courant number was partly
above 1 without any stability issues. For all channels, expect the
straight channel, the mass ow rate over time behaves like an
under- or an overdamped system (a maximum of 150,000 time
steps were required). As convergence criteria the absolute value of
the residuals for every solved equation had to be lower than 10  4,
which was only critical for the rst couple of time steps.
2.3. Numerical models
In this model the uid stress is taken as an indicator for
breakage. For very small particles the validation of this assumption
has to be proven (compare Section 2.5), for very large particles and
high volume fraction of the particles the uid ow would be
inuenced which is not taken into account. The investigated
particles are small and the volume fraction is very low
(x50  230 nm and m 0:010 which is v 0:003, compare
Gothsch et al., 2011).
If the uid is incompressible the NavierStokes equations are




u

p

ui uj
i
u i u j  i

4
ki :
t xj
xi xj
xj xi

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S. Beinert et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 123 (2015) 197206

To reduce computational costs it is common to use turbulence

models which need additional transport equations. With higher
amount of additional transport equations the computational costs
and the accuracy increase. Reynolds proposed an averaging to
reduce the effects of turbulence in the Reynolds-stress tensor
(RST). Therefore, the velocity u and the pressure p are split into
an average and a uctuation value:
ui u i u0i

and

pi p i p0i :

With these new quantities the NavierStokes equations could be

transformed into the Reynolds-averaged-NavierStokes equations
(RANS equations):
0
1



u i B
p

u i u j
k i
@u i u j u0i u0j C

6
A  i
t xj
xi xj
xj xi
|{z}
RST

The Reynolds-stress tensor in index notation is

0 0 0
1
u1 u1 u01 u02 u01 u03
B
C
0 0
0 0
0 0 C
u0i u0j B
@ u2 u1 u2 u2 u2 u3 A:
u03 u01 u03 u02 u03 u03

It is easy to observe that the Reynolds-stress tensor is symmetric

and, hence, six additional transport equations are required to solve
the Reynolds stresses. Furthermore, the diagonal elements are
tensile stress while the others represent shear stress. To receive
the acting stresses at every place in the solution area the stresses
out of the averaged velocity and due to the Reynolds-stress
tensor is required. The resulting stress tensor is
8
u i
>
0 0
>
for i j
>
< 2 xi ui ui



sij
8
u i u j
>
>
u0i u0j for i a j

> 
:
xj xi
2.4. Stresses on particles
In this work only spherical particles are investigated and,
hence, the differentiation between tensile and shear stress is not
useful as a different coordinate system will lead to different tensile
and shear stresses. The principal axis transformation can be used
to transform sij into a tensor t ij which consist only of diagonal
elements. This is done by the Jacobi method and leads to
0
1
11 0
0
B
22 0 C
t ij @ 0
9
A:
33
0
0

11, 22 and 33 are the principal stresses and can be used to

detect material failure. It is a common method (compare maximum shear stress criterion) to calculate if a material breaks. It can
be useful to reduce the stresses to one value. Hence, the principal
!
stresses are used to dene a vector s which norm could be used
as acting stress:
0
1
11

! B C
s @ 22 A

particle taking the ratio of the size of the particles and the size of
the smallest eddies into account. Third and last, it is necessary to
consider the character of the stress (like inertia or viscous stress).
2.5.1. Order of turbulent stress
In this section the order of the turbulent stress is compared
with the order of the stress induced by averaged velocities. For
every Reynolds-stress model the averaged velocity gradients and
the uctuation of every velocity component are calculated. The
turbulent stress su0 and the stress induced by the averaged
velocities su are
1=2
su0 =k

q
s 211 222 233 :
2.5. Turbulent stress on particles

The next section discusses the stress acting on the particles.

First, it is interesting to compare the stress induced by turbulence
and the stress induced by the averaged velocities as proposed in
this model. Second, it is useful to compare the stress acting on a

11

su0 p u0i
1
Ret  
;
su
l u i =xi

12

if the turbulent dissipation rate , which is dened using the

velocity uctuation u0i and the scale of the larger eddies l,

3=2

u0i 3
;
l

13

and the turbulent Reynolds number

Ret

u0i  l

14

is used. One can take u0i =l  u i =xi as the frequency of large eddies
and the frequency of the mean ow should be equal or at least
similar. Therefore, the ratio of the stresses is
su0 p
 Ret
15
su
and it is easy to observe that for fully turbulent ow the stresses
induced by the mean ow are negligible. In this work different
pressure differences and different geometries are investigated.
Some ows are not fully turbulent and, hence, it is necessary to
take both kinds of stresses into account. Nevertheless, the turbulent stress should be the dominant one.
2.5.2. Order of turbulent stress on particles
The turbulent stress acting on particles su0 ;p in dependency on
the particle's diameter dp can be estimated using the uid's
density and the turbulent dissipation rate :

2=3
16
su0 ;p  dp
The ratio between the turbulent stress acting on particles su0 ;p
and the stress induced by averaged velocities su can be estimated
in the following manner:

2=3
su0 ;p p su0 ;p p  dp
Ret 
Ret  

su
su0
= 1=2

10

u
su i :
xi

where k is the Kolmogorov time scale, the turbulent dissipation

rate and the kinematic viscosity. The ratio is

and

33

and

p
dp 2=3
Ret 

with k

1=4
17

This leads to the conclusion that with increasing turbulence

and with increasing ratio of particle size and size of the smallest
eddies the turbulent stress will become dominant. As the range of
investigated ows includes laminar ows and ows in transition
as well as particles with different size the uid stress due to
gradients of the averaged velocity is still necessary to take into
account. Again, the expected turbulent ow leads to the assumption that the turbulent stress is the important one.

S. Beinert et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 123 (2015) 197206

201

2.5.3. Order of inertial turbulent stress

The inertial stress acting on a particle is the energy input of the
active uid Ef per volume of the uid itself Vf. The energy input is
caused by the smallest eddies which dissipate the uids energy
due to viscous effects. It can be written as
Ef mf  u2

Vf
mf =

2
dp
2
 u2 p
dp :

su0 ;i

18

Therein, mf is the mass of the active uid and k is the

Kolmogorov time scale. As the inertial effects on a particle can
only be based on eddies of at least the same magnitude the acting
velocity should be proportional to the diameter of the particle and
the Kolmogorov time scale. Comparing these inertial uid stresses
with the turbulent stress due to viscous effects leads to

2
d2p
su0 ;i
dp

 1=2

su0
k

Fig. 3. Velocity distribution of the uid for the four different geometries at a
pressure difference of p 500 bar.

19

Hence, with decreasing dp =k the inertial uid stress decreases

and becomes negligible for dp =k {1. In the following these
different conclusions have to be proven and will be an indicator
to evaluate if the model is sufcient to describe the acting stresses.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Mass ow and spatial distributions
Due to the fact that the pressure difference is specied the
resulting mass ow can be used to validate the macroscopic
quality of the simulations and used models. In Fig. 2 the mass
ow of water for the four different microchannel geometries of the
1st generation is shown (simulations: pressure difference of
p 50, 100, 200, 300 and 500 bar; experiments: varying pressure difference p). Furthermore, a comparison of the k and the
Reynolds-stress model with experimental data is shown.
It can be seen that the more sophisticated Reynolds-stress
model improves the quality of the simulation. The y-channel is
again in a very good agreement. Additionally, the straight (up to
100 bar, for higher pressures the ow in the straight channel did
not become stationary) and z-channel are in very good agreement
with the Reynolds-stress model and justify the increased computational costs. The difference between calculated and experimentally
measured mass ow in the orice channel is reduced but still

Fig. 2. Comparison of the mass ow for the different microchannels and for
different pressure differences.

Fig. 4. Steam and water distribution for the four different geometries at a pressure
difference of p 500 bar.

distinct. This could be induced due to small inaccuracies in the

production of the microchannel geometry or the dimensions
of these microchannels. Nevertheless, overall the comparison of
the experimental data with the simulation results based on the
Reynolds-stress model is in good agreement. Fig. 3 shows the
velocity distribution of the uid at a plane with the height of
h 34 m (half of the microchannel height) for the four different
geometries at a pressure difference between in- and outlet of
p 500 bar.
As the pressure difference is responsible for the uid ow
the geometry denes the occurring uid velocity. For the same
pressure in the z- and straight channel only moderate velocities
are reached. The long small channel creates a continuous decrease
in pressure and, hence, a relatively constant average velocity. The
orice and y-channel offer partially very narrow channels and due
to the rapid decrease in pressure high velocities occur. Behind the
narrow parts of the microchannel and in the widening at the end
of the channels regions with very low velocities occur. At these
regions cavitation can develop due to the fall of the static pressure
below the evaporation pressure. The steam distributions for these
four channels are shown in Fig. 4.
If the colour differs from dark blue cavitation leads to steam
until only steam is present for red coloured regions. The steam
distribution of the z- and straight channel and of the orice and
y-channel are similar. For the z- and straight channel steam occurs
at the widening at the end of the channel. For the orice and
y-channel the steam occurs after the narrow section and increases
at the widening at the end. The steam leads to a decreased energy
dissipation due to the reduced density and viscosity. Hence, it
enables the forming of free jets by the meaning of an expansion
into the gas phase (not into vacuum as in other cases).
These gained ow elds can then be used for a stationary
particle tracking. This stationary particle tracking is based on the

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S. Beinert et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 123 (2015) 197206

Fig. 5. Velocities, stress and steam fraction for a single particle passing the orice
channel for a pressure difference of p 500 bar (the axes are assigned to the
colours of the four variables). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this
gure caption, the reader is referred to the web version of this paper.)

previously described equations and requires the averaged velocity

gradients and the Reynolds-stress tensor .
3.2. Evaluation of the new model
To characterise different microchannel geometries the values of
the different parameters along every possible path are required.
As a Reynolds-stress model is used which is based on the RANS
equations the averaged velocity u and the uctuating velocity u0
are constant at every place. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the
number of tracked particle paths. In Fig. 5 the tracked parameters
along a path of a particle with a diameter of dp x50 230 nm
released at the centre of the orice channel for a pressure
difference of p 500 bar are shown. Therein velocity is the
uid's velocity, relative velocity is the difference between the
particle velocity and the uid velocity (negative values represent
the case of a particle which is faster than the uid), steam
fraction is the fraction of steam in the region surrounding the
particle and stress represents the acting stress according to
Eq. (10).
It can be seen that the uid's velocity is very low before the
particle reaches the orice. Short before the orice a rapid increase
in the uid's velocity occurs leading to a continuously deceleration
until the widening is achieved. The relative velocity is an indicator
for the acting stress as the difference in velocity causes forces
acting on the particles. The largest difference occurs when the
uid is accelerated rapidly. The peak difference is vrel  8 m=s.
After the orice the particle is continuously decelerated by the
uid. The steam fraction in the volume surrounding the particle
increases after the orice and remains high until the particle
leaves the microchannel. When the local minimum is reached the
widening of the channel begins.
The main stress along the entire path of the particle is tracked,
too. It can be seen that the peak value occurs in the orice itself,
but after the peak value of the relative velocity. Due to the
turbulence after the orice the main stress is higher compared
to the laminar region before the orice. Furthermore, it can be
seen that the relative velocity is an indicator if locally high uid
stress occurs. Due to the fact that a Reynolds-stress model is used,
the stress induced by turbulence cannot be tracked or characterised by the relative velocity. As these stresses could be larger
the main stress has to be used.
To quantify different geometries at different pressures the
peak values (like relative velocity, stress, etc.) of every tracked
path are calculated and weighted by the normal velocity component at the inlet of the seeding point. In Fig. 6 the probability of a

Fig. 6. Peak value distribution of the relative velocity between uid and particle for
the four microchannels for a pressure difference of p 500 bar.

particle to face a maximum relative velocity for the four microchannel geometries for a pressure difference of p 500 bar
is shown.
The z- and the straight channel offer a similar relative velocity
distribution. Due to the redirections within the z-channel slightly
higher values occur. Expectedly, the y- and, especially, the orice
channel prevail higher relative velocities. Due to the narrow parts
the uid's acceleration at a very limited space leads to higher
differences. If the acceleration or the deceleration of the particles
by the surrounding uid is the leading breakage mechanism
(excluding shear stress due to velocity gradients and turbulence)
the orice channel should offer the best results while the z- and
straight channel should be more inefcient; the y-channel should
be between them.
To predict the dispersion efciency of different microchannel
geometries the acting stresses on a particle were tracked and the
resulting distributions for the orice channel at ve different
pressures (see Fig. 7) and for the four different investigated
geometries at two different pressures (see Fig. 8) are presented.
The left part of Fig. 7 shows the probability for a particle to
suffer a specic peak value of the stress at ve different pressure
differences. It can be seen that an increase in pressure difference
leads to an increased probability to sustain the same stress or it
leads to an increased possibility to sustain a higher stress. To
investigate the dependency of the peak stresses s on the pressure
difference the stress is normalized by the pressure difference:
sn

20

The probability to face a specic normalized stress is shown

in the right part of Fig. 7. As the shown curves differ for varying
pressure differences it can be stated that there is now linear
dependency of the stress on the pressure. The dependency is less
than linear meaning that a doubled pressure difference does not
lead to an doubled stress value or probability.
The comparison between the different microchannel geometries is shown in Fig. 8. For the lower pressure difference
p 100 bar all channels exhibit peak values for every tracked
path within a close range. While the z-channel offers highest peak
values, the three remaining channels behave very similar. For a
pressure difference of p 500 bar the results differ. The straight
channel offers the lowest peak values and is about one decade
lower than the other channels. While the occurring peak values in
the z-channel are all-over despite the comparatively low relative
velocities the highest, the maximum stress occurs in the orice
and y-channel. This leads to the conclusion that the relative

S. Beinert et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 123 (2015) 197206

203

Fig. 7. Peak value distribution of the maximum stress (left) and normalized maximum stress (right) acting on the particles for the orice channel for pressure differences
between p 50 and 500 bar.

Fig. 8. Peak value distribution of the main stress acting on particles for the four
microchannels for a pressure difference of p 100 (bright colours) and 500 bar
(powerful colours). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this gure
caption, the reader is referred to the web version of this paper.)

velocity, which is based on the averaged uid velocities, might not

be the dominating dispersion quantity.
Beside the peak values of the acting stress the energy input on
the particle or at the surface of it might be the leading dispersing
quantity. Therefore, the energy input per surface Es along the path
which is dened as
E
Es
S

lu

s dl
ll

with ll and lu f sc

21

was tracked. The critical stress sc is the stress which is required to

act on the particles or at least their structure. As it is unknown in
this work two randomly chosen values are used to characterise the
different geometries. If the stress s exceeds the critical stress sc
(the chosen values are sc 105 Pa and sc 106 Pa) the lower
bound ll was set; if the stress falls below those critical values the
upper bound lu was set. For every path line the highest integral
was used to quantify the surface energy. The probability to face
such an surface energy for both critical values is shown in Fig. 9
(surface energies with a critical stress of sc 105 Pa are shown in
bright colours while surface energies with a critical stress of
sc 106 Pa are shown in powerful colours).
It can be seen that there are huge differences between both
tracked surface energies. While the straight channel offers the

Fig. 9. Probability for a particle to face a specic surface energy above two different
critical values while passing the four different microchannels at a pressure of
p 500 bar (the straight channel offers no stress values above s 106 Pa). (For
interpretation of the references to colour in this gure caption, the reader is
referred to the web version of this paper.)

highest surface energies for the lower critical stress it does not
even reach the higher critical stress, i.e. no curve is shown in Fig. 9.
Due to the constant velocity and turbulence in the entire microchannel the product of stress and distance is high as long the
critical stress is smaller than the stress acting in the channel. By
increasing the critical stress sc the other three channels which
offer higher peak values due to higher pressure gradients enable
higher surface energies.
Furthermore, it can be seen that for a critical stress of
sc 106 Pa between 10 and 40% of the particles does not face a
surface stress. Also, the behaviour of the three remaining microchannel geometries changes. While the z-channel leads to the
highest probability to face a specic stress the order of the orice
and y-channel changes if the critical stress varies. This behaviour
can be used as an indicator to estimate the real critical stress as
both channels behave similar in the dispersing results. Hence, it
can be stated that if the surface energy is the dominant dispersing
parameter its value should be at least above sc 105 (and possibly
above sc 106 Pa).
3.3. Stresses in the microchannels of the 1st generation
Comparing the experimental performed dispersing results leads
to the assumption that the computed stresses of the z-channel are
overestimated. The straight, y- and orice channel behave like the

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S. Beinert et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 123 (2015) 197206

experimental results would expect (for peak stresses and surface

energy), while the z-channel defers. Due to the underestimated mass
ow (see Fig. 2) the stress of the orice channel should be underestimated, while the others have not to be corrected (correct mass
ow). Compared to the other investigated three channel geometries
the z-channel offers two wide redirections which lead to swirls and
heavily curved streamlines. This behaviour leads to very high
Reynolds stresses which result in higher stresses acting on the
particles and might be the reason for the overestimation.

3.4. Microchannels of the 2nd generation inuence of cavitation

and steam
Another interesting inuence on the dispersing efciency of
different microchannel geometries is the effect of cavitation and,
hence, steam. Therefore, investigations with the orice channel of
the 2nd generation were performed. The effect of cavitation on the
mass ow is presented in Fig. 10. For the experimental investigations an backpressure was applied which increases the static
pressure occurring in the entire channel to a sufcient level which
prevails cavitation and eliminates all steam regions. According to
these results single- and multiphase simulations were performed.
It can be stated that the mass ow is in excellent agreement for
the two investigated pressure differences with or without applied
backpressure. Compared to the results of the 1st generation this
could be based on the ner mesh of the newer microchannel
geometries or the increased dimensions of the channel and the
orice itself (30  68 m2 increased up to 80  50 m2 ).
In addition, the effect on the mass ow due to the increased
resistance caused by cavitation can be seen, too. The viscosity of
steam is much lower than liquid water and, hence, the inner
friction of the uid is reduced. This would lead to higher mass ow
rates for multiphase systems. But on the other hand, the region
after the orice itself should not inuence the ow before and in
the orice itself. Short before the orice and in the orice the
shear stress of the uid is the highest. The difference in both cases
is that already in the orice cavitation occurs and leads to steam.
Even for higher pressures the density of steam is much lower than
in liquid state. Therefore, the creation of steam head to a reduced
cross-sectional area and, hence, to an increased resistance. As long
as steam (created due to cavitation) is present in the orice (but
not in the vena contracta) the mass ow should be lower
compared to the single phase case.
According to the work of Gothsch et al. (2014) there is no linear
increasing mass ow rate between a backpressure of pb 0 bar
and pb 175 bar at constant pressure difference between inlet and

Fig. 11. Pressure distribution in the 2nd generation orice channel at a pressure of
p 200 bar without cavitation.

Table 2
Applied pressure differences and lowest occurring pressures which suppress
cavitation (received from simulations) and required backpressures to gain a
constant mass ow rate (received from experiments).
Pressure difference (bar) Lowest pressure
(simulations) (bar)

Back pressure
(experiments) (bar)

100
200
300
500
1000

90
150
300
Z 700

81.7
175.7

35
274.9
483.4
1039.3

755

outlet p 200 bar. The mass ow increases up to an backpressure of pb  90 bar and remains constant for higher backpressures. It is expected that the mass ow rate will become
constant if no cavitation occurs as the pressure difference between
inlet and outlet is constant. It could be shown that for a backpressure of pb  90 bar cavitation and, hence, steam is only created
in the vena contracta. If the steam remains in the vena contracta
there is no inuence of it on the uid ow due to the decrease in
density. This explanation is supported by the pressure distribution
shown in Fig. 11. It can be seen that the very low (negative)
pressure (which would lead to steam if no backpressure is applied)
is only present in the vena contracta. Therefore, already low
backpressures can reduce regions especially behind the orice
where steam is present.
In Table 2 the required, calculated backpressures to prevent
cavitation and the ratio between backpressure and pressure
difference between inlet and outlet are listed. Additionally, the
required measured backpressures to receive a constant mass ow
rate and the appropriate ratio are listed, too. It can be seen that
higher pressure differences require higher backpressures to get the
same behaviour. The difference between experimental and simulative gained results is based on the described effect (backpressure
inuence on the mass ow). The equation to calculate the lowest
occurring pressure pmin in the simulations to suppress cavitation is
pmin 0:505  p1:10

22

and to calculate the experimentally gained backpressure pb to

reach a constant mass ow is
pb 0:076  p1:33 :

Fig. 10. Experimentally measured and computed mass ow for different inlet
pressures with/without backpressure for the new orice channel.

23

The italic values in Table 2 represent values gained from

Eqs. (22) and (23). It can be seen that the pressure to reach a
constant mass ow and, hence, to allow cavitation only in the vena
contracta (leading to a constant mass ow) increases rapidly
compared to the lowest pressure which would suppress cavitation
in the whole microchannel. The extrapolated value to gain a
constant mass ow for a pressure difference at p 1000 bar is
in good agreement with the experimental results (as a constant
mass ow was not reached).

S. Beinert et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 123 (2015) 197206

205

length scale:

1=4



1=4

3  l
v3max

 33 nm o d10 o d50

27

It can be seen that the computed stresses used by the Reynoldsstress tensor and the maximum velocity seem to be in the range
which could be delivered by the occurred turbulence. To identify
the order of the turbulence stress in Fig. 12 the stress calculated by
the averaged velocity gradients (brighter colours) is shown, too.
These computed velocity gradients are lower than the real stresses
and two to three orders of magnitude lower than the turbulent
stress computed by the Reynolds-stress model . Hence, it can be
stated that the stress is caused by fully turbulent ows. The ratio of
particles and Kolmogorov length scale is about
dp
Fig. 12. Peak value distribution of the normalized main stress and stress due to
velocity gradients acting on particles for the new orice channels for a pressure
difference of p 100 and 200 bar with and without cavitation. (For interpretation
of the references to colour in this gure caption, the reader is referred to the web
version of this paper.)

In Fig. 12 the particle tracking for the new orice channel is

presented. The stress is normalized by the pressure to enable an
easy comparison between different pressures and between the
single- and multiphase simulation. The powerful coloured lines
represent the previously described computed stress. Due to the
fact that the curves with and the curves without cavitation are
almost identical for varying pressure differences it can be concluded that there is an almost linear dependency on the peak
values of the stress and the pressure. Furthermore, it can be seen
that the reduced mass ow of the multiphase simulations leads to
an reduced level of acting stresses. This is in good agreement with
the experimental data.

3.5. Evaluation of the magnitude of the turbulent stress

In the following two different stresses are investigated: rst the
stress 50% of all particles would face, second the stress only 10%
of all particles would face. Those stress values for a pressure
difference of p 200 bar without cavitation are used to calculate
the shear strain of the uid:

50 smax;50 =  1:29  109 1=s and

10 smax;10 =  3:24  109 1=s:

24

Dividing the maximum velocity (which is about vmax 250 m=s)

by the shear strain the radius of the required eddies can be
calculated:
d50 2  vmax =50  388 nm
d10 2  vmax =10  154 nm:

and
25

If the length scale for the smallest eddies dened by Kolmogorov is used, the lower limit of occurring eddies could be calculated
using the turbulent dissipation rate found in the simulation:

k;sim  38 nm

26

The eddy size computed with the dissipation rate out of the
computed Reynolds-stress tensor is in congruence. Again, with the
length scale dened by Kolmogorov it is possible to calculate an
lower limit at which the dissipation of energy due to uid friction
occurs. For the second approach, Eq. (13) with the maximum
occurring velocity vmax and the lowest length (half of the height of
the channel l 25 m) is used to receive an lower limit for this

230 nm
 1:
33153 nm

28

Hence, the turbulence stress could act on the particles and

could be the leading breakage mechanism.

4. Conclusion
In the present study a model to calculate the stress based on
uid velocity gradients and the Reynolds-stress tensor is presented.
Based on the Jacobi method a single value which represents the
uid stress can be calculated for every position in the microchannel. With a stationary particle tracking these stresses could be
tracked. Beside the stress the relative velocities and the energy per
surface were tracked. With the normal uid velocity component at
the inlet a weighting of all maximum values for every seeding
point was possible to enable a quantication of different geometries for varying pressure differences. Five different microchannel
geometries were investigated: a straight, a z-, a y- and an orice
channel of the 1st generation and a orice channel of the 21nd
generation. The rst ones were used to compare the results with
previously gained results based on simulations with a k model.
The mass ow rate was used as an indicator for the quality
of the simulations. Compared to the k model the results from
simulations based on the Reynolds-stress model are an improvement and offer (partly excellent) agreement with the experimental
results. Only the orice channel of the 1st generation differs a bit.
Due to the increase of the cell number of the mesh, the improved
accuracy of the turbulence model compared to the previous work
and the excellent agreement in mass ow rate for the orice
channel of the 2nd generation it can be stated that further
improvements of model and ner meshes will not lead to the
identical mass ow rate. As the dimension of the orice channel of
the 1st generation is the smallest and the fabrication method
changed from the 1st to the 2nd generation the difference could be
induced due to the different dimensions and/or fabrication inaccuracies. The calculated stresses are in good agreement except for
the z-channel which offers two redirections which lead to swirls
and highly curved streamlines. It could be shown that the maximum stress as well as the energy per surface can be the dominant
breakage mechanism (while the maximum stress as leading
breakage mechanism is more reasonable).
For the orice channel of the 2nd generation the focus was on
the inuence of the cavitation and steam regions. The mass ow
was in excellent agreement with the experimental data. It could be
shown that the simulations can reproduce the cavitation and
steam effects. Additionally, the experiments and simulations support the explanation for the reduced mass ow: as long as the
steam is limited to the vena contracta the mass ow is constant. If
the steam regions expand into the orice itself a reduction occurs.

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S. Beinert et al. / Chemical Engineering Science 123 (2015) 197206

Furthermore, it was shown that the turbulence ow and the

eddies are in the range which might be responsible for the
breakage of the particles. The stress computed with the developed
model is in the range of reasonable occurring turbulent ows.
Hence, the increased computational costs for solving the six
additional equations for the Reynolds-stress tensor result in an
improved quality of the ow elds and quantication possibilities.
List of symbols
Latin symbols
E
d
dp
h
k
ki
l
p
b

r
s
sc
sn
!
s
su0 , su
sij
S
t
tij
ui
vmax
V
x50
xi
Greek symbols

ij
k
m
v

energy (J)
fractal dimension ()
m particle diameter
height, depth (m)
turbulent kinetic energy (m2 =s2 )
body force, index notation (N/kg)
length (m)
pressure (Pa)
backpressure (Pa)
radius (m)
stress (Pa)
critical stress (Pa)
normalized stress ()
stress vector (Pa)
stress induced by velocity (Pa)
stress tensor (Pa)
surface (m2)
time (s)
transformed stress tensor (Pa)
velocity, index notation (m/s)
maximum velocity (m/s)
volume (m3)
median particle size (m)
coordinates, index notation (m)
turbulent dissipation rate (m2 =s3 )
viscosity (Pa s)
Kolmogorov length scale (m)
kinematic viscosity (m2 =s)
density (kg=m3 )
stress component (Pa)
Kolmogorov time scale (s)
mass ratio ()
volume ratio ()

Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the DFG for nancial
support within the DFG research group 856 Mikrosysteme fuer
partikulaere Life-Science-Produkte (mikroPART) (KW 9/6-2).
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