Effects of Surface Etch Hole Fault on the Velocity Field in Microchannel Reactors

Microchannel reactors are commonly used in micro-chemical technology. The performance of microreactors is greatly affected by the velocity field in the microchannel. The flow field is disturbed by the cylindrical etch holes caused by air dust on the microchannel surface during its processing procedure. In this approach, a two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is put forward to study the effect of etch holes on flow field. The influenced area of single or two concave etch holes is studied for the case of laminar flow. The hole diameter, the Reynolds number and the distance between the center of holes are found to have influences on the flow field. Numerical results indicate that the effects of etch hole on the flow field should be evaluated and the way of choosing the economic class of cleanroom for microreactor manufacture is presented.