Micro-PIV Investigation of a Sinusoidal Crossflow Microfiltration Module

A micro-PIV system is presented in detail, pointing out important aspects of micro-PIV system design cruicial for its operation. The micro-PIV system is then applied on a sinusoidal microchannel, and the fluid motion inside the device is presented and discussed. The wall shear stress at the waist of the channel is measured to be up to 60% higher than the wall shear stress in a conventional parallel-plate flow. The results suggest that altering of channel geometry may contribute to better design of cross-flow microfiltration units, in terms of reduced clogging by shear-control of bacterial motion. Furthermore, the flow is shown to exhibit a strong Reynolds number dependence, characterised by the onset of periodic distortion imposed on the flow by the sinusoidal walls occuring between Re = 2 and Re = 10.