The paper presents the results of a numerical study devoted to the hydraulic properties of a network of parallel triangular microchannels (hydraulic diameter Dh = 110 um). Previous experimental investigations had revealed that pressure drop through the microchannels system dramatically increases for the Reynolds number exceeding value of 10. The disagreement of the experimental findings with the estimations of flow resistance based on the assumption of fully developed flow were suspected to result from the so-called scale effect. Numerical simulations were performed by using the classical system of flow equations (continuity and Navier-Stokes equations) in order to explain the observed discrepancies. The calculations showed a very good agreement with the experimental results proving that there is no scale effect for the microchannels considered, i.e. the relevance of the constitutive flow model applied was confirmed. It was also clearly indicated that the excessive pressure losses in the high Reynolds number range are due to the secondary flows and separations appearing in several regions of the microchannel system.
Environmental hydraulics is a sub-branch of environmental fluid mechanics that deals with the movement of water and transport processes in both natural water bodies and engineered waterways. Techniques developed to evaluate flow resistance in man-made conduits can be successfully applied to natural waterways.
In this paper, flow systems which are commonly used in fittings elements such as contractions in ice slurry pipelines, are experimentally investigated. In the study reported in this paper, the consideration was given to the specific features of the ice slurry flow in which the flow behaviour depends mainly on the volume fraction of solid particles. The results of the experimental studies on the flow resistance, presented herein, enabled to determine the loss coefficient during the ice slurry flow through the sudden pipe contraction. The mass fraction of solid particles in the slurry ranged from 5 to 30%. The experimental studies were conducted on a few variants of the most common contractions of copper pipes: 28/22 mm, 28/18 mm, 28/15 mm, 22/18 mm, 22/15 mm and 18/15 mm. The recommended (with respect to minimal flow resistance) range of the Reynolds number (Re about 3000-4000) for the ice slurry flow through sudden contractions was presented in this paper.