Numerical approach for fabrication of micromixers using microstereolithography

Micromixer is used for mixing liquid constituents in microflows by overcoming the laminar nature of flows in small scale. A numerical investigation of the mixing in passive micromixers employing obstructions of different shapes is presented in this work. Mixing in the channels is analyzed using computational fluid dynamics code for different micromixer designs. The proposed micromixer with square shaped obstructions shows far better mixing performance than a simple micromixer without obstructions. The effects of shape of the obstructions on the mixing performance of micromixer are evaluated. An attempt has been made in the current work for fabrication of micromixer using microstereolithography, which is an additive manufacturing process based on the principle of photopolymerization. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd.