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Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 447 453

3rd International Conference on Innovations in Automation and Mechatronics Engineering,

ICIAME 2016

Flow and Pressure Drop Characteristics of Equal Section DivergentConvergent Microchannels

Rohit Singhal and Mohd. Zahid Ansari1
PDPM-Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing-Jabalpur, Khamaria, Jabalpur, MP 482005 India

Abstract
In this work, a generalized design of non-uniform tapered microchannel is purposed which is correlating different types of
nonuniform microchannel. A parameter of purposed channel is used to define three different cases of nonuniform channel.
Pressure drop is found by numerical investigation of fluid flow in channel which is carried out in laminar flow conditions. Water is
used as working fluid at low mass flow conditions. Three different cases of converging, diverging and equally converging and
diverging channel are investigated. Pressure drop in channel is linear dependent on mass flow rate and shows a lower pressure
drop in case of equal converging diverging channel. On basis of the study, characteristic length scale is analyzed which can be
used to evaluate pressure drop in tapered channel by uniform channel correlation. Characteristic length scale shows a dependency
with respect to given three cases. This work established a new concept of generalizing converging diverging passage which can be
used further for analysis of channel properties.
2016
2016The
TheAuthors.
Authors.Published
Published
Elsevier
byby
Elsevier
Ltd.Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Selection
and/or peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of ICIAME 2016.
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ICIAME 2016
Keywords:Non-uniform; Converging-Diverging microchannel; Single phase flow; Characteristic length scale.

1. Introduction
In todays world, because of material efficiency, microscale devices are used for bio-medical, heat exchanging,
detection phenomenon etc. Microchannels can be made up of material PDMS or silicon for mixing and transport
phenomenon of varieties of fluids (form water to DNA samples). Microchannel devices used for heat removal[1], in
high power lasers, diode arrays, microprocessors and radar. Heat dissipation levels in high performance microchips is
increasing rapidly and are of order of 500W/cm2[2], while temperature requirement for IC working is remaining
same. Hence effective thermal management of power dissipation is needed. Present way of heat dissipation is air
based can be alter by water circulating heat sinks, as water with high heat capacity and latent heat is better option
than air. Naphon and Wiriyasart [3] enhanced CPUs chip cooling by using thermoelectric. Ghaedamini et
al.[4]showed contribution of chaotic action in enhancement of mixing and heat transfer phenomenon of wavy
channel. Laugaet al.[5]studied velocity field of planner structure, concluded mixing dependence on curvature and
cross-section of channel. Other application of microchannel involved in micropump, microvalve and microsensors.
Characteristics of a microchannel are determined by hydraulic diameter, smaller hydraulic diameter corresponds to
large heat transfer as well as large pressure drop through channel which make it needed to be studied.
Gad-el-Hak [6] suggested classical theory for water in channel larger than 1 m. Kandlikar [7] had studied most
of cases of uniform microchannel and segmented frictional factor and Nusselt number in a compiled manner. There is
limited work done on non-uniform microchannel compared with uniform cross-section channel. Analysis in [8] limits
1 Corresponding author. Tel.+91-7612794422
E-mail address :zahid@iiitdmj.ac.in

2212-0173 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ICIAME 2016
doi:10.1016/j.protcy.2016.03.049

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Rohit Singhal and Mohd. Zahid Ansari / Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 447 453

value of critical Reynolds number to 150 in diverging channel with 3 degree angle. Akabari [9]described an
analytical method for pressure drop in laminar flow in periodic nonuniform channel. Duryodhan et al. [10], [11]
developed an approach of finding equivalent hydraulic diameter (by dimensions at characteristic length) to predict,
overall pressure drop through converging and diverging microchannel having trapezoidal cross-section. As per
knowledge, any work done before had not mentioned variation of length of nature change (change diverging channel
to converging channel) in channel. Present work considers single phase liquid flow under laminar conditions in nonuniform microchannel. A typical design of microchannel with combination of diverging and converging passages,
with deionized water as working fluid, is investigated with different cases i.e. converging, diverging and equally
converging and diverging channel. Obtained numerical results had been used to develop a way to find pressure drop
in given shape channel by using a simple parameter can be used in correlations of straight channels.

Nomenclature
inlet width
Wi
outlet width
Wo
width at centre of channel
Wc
L
Channel length
H
height
length of diverging part
L1

L2
length of converging part
P
Pressure drop
Hydraulic Diameter
Dh
Greek symbols

ratio

diverging or converging angle of channel

aspect ratio
c

2. Theory
2.1 Geometrical consideration
The schematic of uniform rectangular microchannel is representing in figure 1. It also shows our proposed
nonuniform microchannel proceeded in analysis along with its top view. Microchannel have smaller hydraulic
diameter exhibits high pressure drop across it, due to which microchannel manufactured as parallel array of small
length channels as show in figure 1.

Figure 1. Schematic designs of a conventional microchannel heat sink employing five rectangular microchannels (top) and our proposed equal
section divergent-convergent microchannel (bottom).

Parameters given in channel are described in nomenclature section. Geometries have certain constrains as, angle
of divergence and convergence are equal to each other, length of all case are 10 mm, hydraulic diameter is calculated
using average width of channel. Average width is volume of section divided by product of length and height.

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Rohit Singhal and Mohd. Zahid Ansari / Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 447 453

W  Wc
Wo  Wc

Volume of Section i
u D u L 
u 1  D  u L u H
2
2

(1)

So, the average width can be given as:

W

Wi  Wc
2

Wo  Wc

u D 
2

u 1  D 

(2)

Table 1 Geometry details of different length of nature change with constant angle 4, length 10mm and height 300 m.
Case

Wi (m)
Wc (m)
Wo (m)
Dh (m)
1
0
1080
Converging
380
425
2
0.5
560
910
560
426
3
1.0
380
Diverging
1080
425

And, the hydraulic diameter can be given as:

Dh

4 uW u H
2 u (W  H )

(3)

Channel flow is closed boundary flow, fluid at walls experience no slip condition (a stationary layer) due to
which velocity gradient forms in fluid. This no slip boundary exerts resistance to flow results as pressure drop which
presented as frictional factor in dimensionless form. Here, pressure drop across channel is found by numerical
analysis which is used to find friction factor. Above cases given in tables are simulated to find pressure drop across
channel which is used to find out fanning friction factor as:
f

'P
2 L
2 UU

Dh

(4)

UU Dh
P

(5)

Reynold's number is given as:

Re

Therefore,
U 'P
2
f .Re
(6)
 Dh A 

2P L m
Theoretical values are, compared with numerical data to find characteristic length, were calculated using
Phillips [12] results. At inlet mass flow (1.6510 -5-4.17510-5 Kg/sec) is given. Phillips [12] had presented friction
factor in tabular form, further developed into regression equations by Kandlikar [7] as:

f .Re

a  c

1  b

x  ex

x  dx  fx

1.5

, where x

Dh
Re

(7)

where a, b, c, d, e and f are regression coefficient given in table 2 and interpolation of data is used for intermediate
values of c.
Table 2 Regression coefficients of above equation
Constants
c
1.0
0.5
0.2
10

a
141.97
142.05
142.1
286.65

b
-7.0603
-5.4166
-7.3374
25.701

c
2603
1481
376.69
337.81

d
1431.7
1067.8
800.92
1091.5

e
14364
13177
14010
26415

f
-220.77
-108.52
-33.894
8.4098

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Rohit Singhal and Mohd. Zahid Ansari / Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 447 453

2.2 Numerical consideration

Steady 3D governing equation for conservation of mass and momentum along with boundary conditions were
solved using commercial available software of ANSYS Fluent.
Equation for the conservation of mass:

UV

(8)

Equation of the conservation of momentum:

V . UV

p  . PV

(9)

Figure 2. Meshed 3D fluid domain in ANSYS

Boundary conditions are given as constant mass flow rate at inlet, constant pressure at outlet and no slip
condition on all inner walls. Pressure based solver is used with semi implicit method for pressure linked equations
(SIMPLE) scheme for pressure-velocity coupling. Grid independence is checked for case ratio= 0.33 at mass flow
rate 1.6510-5 Kg/sec and as per limited computational capability 0.5 million nodes case is select for numerical
simulations. Figure 2 shows meshed fluid domain used for analysis in ANSYS Fluent.

3. Results and Discussion

Figure 3 shows variation of pressure drop through channel for different ratio as indicated different cases of
microchannel described in table 1. It shows increasing pressure drop with increasing mass flow rate in all ratio
cases. Variation of pressure drop for individual ratio is linear increasing with increasing mass flow rate as with mass
flow rate, velocity in channel increases and due to no slip condition at wall velocity gradient increases, corresponds
higher viscous force. Because of this, pressure drop across channel increases with mass flow rate. With increasing
mass flow rate, pressure drop in converging channel increasing much higher than diverging channel. If considered
by geometrical aspect, ratio pair (0, 1) is same channel. But using channel as later case in pair leads to less pressure
drop in channel at higher mass flow rates at given hydraulic diameter. Channels with ratio 0.5 have least pressure
drop at given mass flow rate.

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Rohit Singhal and Mohd. Zahid Ansari / Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 447 453

Figure 3. Pressure drop variation with respect to ratio and mass flow rate with constant angle 4oand Dh= 425 m.

Case ratio equal to 0.5 have lower pressure drop, because W (smallest) in ratio 0.5 cases are larger than other
two cases of converging and diverging channel and difference in W (largest) and W (smallest) of ratio 0.5 case is
smaller than others. Hence for same mass flow rate and as per conservation of mass, velocity of fluid in ratio 0.5
case is lower and difference in velocity is lower than other cases. Because of lower velocity, inertia force is lower
and need less pressure force required across channel leads to lesser pressure drop. Velocity and pressure contours for
equally converging and diverging section case are shown in Figure 4 Velocity have a non-linear variation form the
inlet to outlet, Because of varying sections pressure drop per unit length at different length is varying as at narrower
section pressure drop per unit length is more as compared to wider sections. Velocity profiles show developing flow
through out channel.

Figure 4. Pressure contour and velocity contour in equally diverging and converging at mass flow rate 4.17510-5 Kg/sec

Characteristic length scale of channel is used to find friction factor of a non-uniform channel using defined
correlations of uniform channel. Hydraulic diameter is used to represent it. Duryodhan et al. [10], [11]had discussed
various approach to find characteristic length and used an algorithm to find characteristic length. Same approach is
used in this paper. For cases have ratio less than 0.5 their characteristic length is L/N from outlet (Duryodhan et al.
[11] in converging channel L/N is taken from outlet) while for others is L/N from inlet (Duryodhan et al. [10] in
diverging channel L/N is taken from inlet), where L is channel length and 1/N is length fraction at which
characteristic Dh is found. Relation below is derived by geometry:
Assumed Width  Wref
Wc  Wref

Charateristic length
D uL

(10)

where, Wref is width at inlet, outlet and any one of both for diverging, converging and ratio 0.5 cases respectively. N

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Rohit Singhal and Mohd. Zahid Ansari / Procedia Technology 23 (2016) 447 453

value is given as:

L
Charateristic length

Wc  Wref

 Assumed Width  Wref  uD

(11)

Figure 5 (a) shows variation average value of 1/N dips at ratio 0.5, tells that characteristic length lie near inlet
and outlet for case ( =1) and case ( = 0) respectively. Duryodhan et al.[10], [11] had purposed 1/N equals to 0.33
and 0.277 for diverging and converging channel respectively which seems familiar as diverging case ( =1)
approaches to 0.32 and same with converging. Figure 5 (b) shows a pattern of characteristic width of different ratio
cases for 4 degree angle case, which reveals that at ratio 0.5 case value of have higher characteristic width with
respect to other cases, this value corresponds to its low pressure drop.

(a)

(b)

Figure 5. Graph between (a) average value 1/N and ratio and (b) characteristic width versus ratio for 4 degree angle cases at Dh= 425 m.

4. Conclusion
This study was conducted to found characteristic length scale of non-uniform channel by considering
different cases under single generalized model. Previously just individual studies were available on this. Using
numerical methods, pressure drop and flow characteristics of difference cases are analyzed and found that in cases
of ratio 0.5 have least pressure drop across channel. Pressure drop is linear proportion to mass flow rate as
characteristic length scale is calculated for different cases, it shows a pattern which resembles results of previous
studies.1/N of diverging channel is 0.33 which is equal to values found in previous studies whereas 1/N of
converging channel is lower with value of 0.223 and a further lower value which indicates that characteristics length
scale of ratio 0.5 case is much closer to its inlet. This pattern need to be analyzed for more in-between cases and can
be used to optimize geometry on basis of ratio parameter. Further study of variation of length scale with respect to
hydraulic diameter and angle will needed.

Acknowledgements
This study was supported by PDPM IIITDM-Jabalpur.
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