Design and modeling study of a curved channel passive micromixer for chemical and biomedical applications

A new design and three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics analysis of curved microchannel micro-mixer is presented. The mixing performance and the level of pressure loss in the micro-channel were investigated using numerical analysis in the range of low Reynolds number (Re) 0.1 up to 1.3. Mixing efficiency was quantified by definition of a Mixing index (MI) at the exit of the micro-mixer which results over 95%, demonstrating that the micro-mixer can enhance mixing using mechanism of diffusion at low Re. Two geometric dimensions: micro-channel diameter define the design parameter and also four different designs (two reference and two main designs) define as micro-mixers, and the mixing index and pressure loss are the performance parameters in the numerical study. Through the analysis, the mixing index at the exit of the micro-mixer is enhanced by about 50% in comparison with the reference design. It is believe that, these findings will be useful for enhancing mixing performance for passive micro-mixers.