Numerical and experimental investigations of mixing length in square wave serpentine micromixer with obstacles

In the present work, numerical and experimental investigations have been carried out to characterize the fluid mixing and pressure drop through square wave serpentine passive micromixers with obstacles at different inlet flow conditions. Three different shapes of obstacles, viz., rectangular, triangular and semicircular are introduced along the walls of the micromixer. Based on the simulation results, the most effective design micromixer is proposed. The results show that introducing obstacles in the micromixer enhances the mixing performance at the cost of higher pressure drop. It further reveals that the mixing performance is the highest for micromixer with triangular obstacles and the pressure drop is also the lowest among all the micromixers with obstacles. Finally, the computational results are validated with the experimental results.