Numerical simulation of slip behaviors and friction reduction effects in hydrophobic micro-channel in laminar flow conditions

Abstract

In the study, a numerical simulation of the sliding properties of the rough and smooth surfaces with micro-structure was made. The simulation of shear flow in the micro-channel was performed with ANSYS FLUENT software. The 3-D and two-phase flow is simulated by choosing the volume of fluid model. In CFD analysis, water and air consist of two immiscible phases. In the calculations, if water is the first fluid and air is the second fluid, adjustments are made. At the beginning of the analysis, the channel was considered to be completely filled with air and the effect of gravity was ignored during the calculation. Water and air are considered Newtonian and incompressible fluids. In addition, laminar flow and steady-state calculations are made. It was found that the decrease in pressure drop increased with increasing distance between asperities (no-shear fraction). In the simulation results, approximately 14% of the velocity in the micro-channel axis was measured at the interface. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the applicability of the volume of fluid model in a hydrophobic micro-channel flow designed in 3-D using ANSYS Fluent CFD software.