CFD Modeling of Mixing Intensification in Micromixers Using Stimulation of Magnetic Nanoparticles under Magnetic Field

One of the methods for mixing enhancement in micromixers is the stimulation of magnetic nanoparticles under the magnetic field, which by fluid actuation and inducing the turbulence caused an increase of mixing. This research aims to study the effects of the magnetic field on the mixing of water and ferrofluid in three different types of micromixers.  In this research, three types of micromixers including Y, T, and oriented Y were designed in Gambit Software Package. After creating an internal network in each micromixer and specifying their boundary conditions, the resulting geometries were transferred to the Fluent Software Package and a fluid CFD model was performed. The external magnetic field, which had a strength of 2200 G (0.22 mT), was applied at the center of each micromixer. From the CFD results, it can be concluded that by applying a magnetic field on each micromixer, ferrofluid is affected by both hydrodynamic and magnetic forces that induce secondary flows inside the mixing channel and so mixing increased. From this study, it can be concluded that the more efficient mixing was achieved in the oriented Y micromixer because of contact angle of inlet fluids, T micromixer, and Y micromixer, respectively. A comparison between CFD results with experimental data from a valid reference showed acceptable agreement between them.