The pressure drop in microchannels filled with porous media formed by square arrays of cylinders (micro-porous channels) is investigated. Combining the Brinkman equation and the existing models for permeability of regular arrays of cylinders, the pressure drop in the considered micro-porous channels is calculated theoretically. Soft lithography method is used to fabricate several Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microporous-channels with porosities in the range of 0.35 to 0.95, fiber diameters varying from 50 to 400 μm, and channel depth of approximately 100 μm. Distilled water is pushed through the samples using a syringe pump with steady flow rate and the resulting pressure drops are measured for several flow rates. The developed model captures the trends of experimental data for all of the samples. Our analysis indicates that a competing behaviour exists between the permeability and the channels dimensions for controlling the pressure drop. Therefore, the Darcy number should be used to determine the dominating parameter.

Volume Subject Area:
8th International Conference on Nanochannels, Microchannels, and Minichannels
Topics:
Microchannels, Porous materials, Pressure drop, Cylinders, Flow (Dynamics), Permeability, Dimensions, Fibers, Lithography, Plasma desorption mass spectrometry, Pumps, Water
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