On “Cavitation on Chip” in Microfluidic Devices With Surface and Sidewall Roughness Elements

In this paper, cavitating flows are characterized in 29 microfluidic devices in order to achieve a comprehensive perspective regarding flow patterns in microscale, which is crucial in the applications, such as energy harvesting and biomedical treatment. While the assessment of size effects is vital for the design and development of microfluidic devices involving phase change, surface/sidewall roughness and pressure pulses as a result of nanomechanical oscillations increase the performance with respect to cavitation by providing more cavitation bubbles. A typical device generates cavitating flows under different conditions (from inception to choked flow). In this device, a restrictive element and a big channel downstream of the restrictive element-where the cavitation is formed and developed-are included. The cavitating flows are obtained inside 24 sidewall roughened and 5 surface roughened/plain microfluidic devices at different pressure drops. The length and height of the sidewall roughness elements are varied to achieve the most optimum performance in terms of cavitation generation. Moreover, different surface roughened and plain devices are considered to provide a comprehensive overview of cavitation generation in microscale. The results show that sidewall roughness elements have a remarkable effect on the cavitation inception and flow patterns.