Effects of Structured Roughness on Fluid Flow at the Microscale Level

Abstract

It has been well established that there are no differences between microscale and macroscale flows of incompressible liquids. However, surface roughness has been known to impact the transport phenomena. This work aims to systematically quantify the effect of structured roughness geometries on friction factor in the laminar and turbulent flows as a precursor to the detailed heat transfer studies on these geometries. Experiments were conducted by varying the pitch (150–400 μm) and height (36–131 μm) of transverse rib roughness structures in rectangular channels such that the pitch-to-height ratio ranged from 2 to 8. The channel width was fixed at 12.70 mm and the length at 152.4 mm, while the channel gap was varied (230–937 μm). Tests were conducted over a Reynolds number range of 5–3400. The results are compared to the existing models, which do not account for specific roughness features such as pitch and height. A theoretical model is developed to predict the effect of roughness pitch and height on pressure drop along the channel length. Validation of the proposed theory is carried out by comparing the predictions with the experimental results. The model and the experimental results provide an understanding of the effect of two-dimensional structured roughness on the frictional losses in fully developed laminar flow.

Acknowledgments

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under award CBET- 0829038. Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.