Thermal analysis of micropolar fluid flow driven by electroosmosis and peristalsis in microchannels

Abstract

Thermo-micropolar fluids contain small conductive particles, which would be useful for drug delivery and localised heating. Considering the importance of the special fluid model (micropolar fluids), a mathematical model is formulated to analyse the heat transfer in the electroosmotic flow of thermo-micropolar fluid in a curved microchannel. A curvilinear coordinate system is adopted to describe the curved microchannel, which is propagated by peristaltic pumping and generates the pressure gradient in addition to the electroosmotic force. Eringen’s micropolar theory is employed to introduce the conservation of mass, linear momentum, angular momentum and energy to model the problem. Numerical solutions are computed for low zeta potential and low Reynolds number using Mathematica NDSolver. The effects of microchannel curvature, electrokinetic, zeta potential, micropolar parameter and viscosities (shear and vortex viscosities) ratio on velocity fields, pressure gradient, temperature, the contour of streamlines, shear stress isotherms and heat transfer coefficient are examined to provide a parametric analysis. Numerical results reveal that the pressure has a slight deviation with wall curvature; however, the pressure changes significantly with variation in coupling number and electric field. Furthermore, the linear and angular velocities of the micropolar fluid could be controlled by the electrokinetic phenomena.

KEYWORDS:

• Micropolar fluids
• electroosmotic
• low zeta potential
• trapping phenomena
• curvature
• isotherms

Acknowledgements

V. K. Narla gratefully acknowledges the Research Seed Grants (RSG) by Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management (GITAM) Deemed to be University, Hyderabad, India [Sanction Letter Ref: F.No. 2021/0039, dated 20-07-2021].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).