Investigation of Combined Electro-Osmotic and Pressure-Driven Flow in Rough Microchannels

Abstract

The present study is carried out to investigate the influence of surface roughness in combined electro-osmotic and pressure-driven flow in microchannel. Two-dimensional theoretical model is developed to predict the behavior of velocity profiles in rough microchannel. The concept of surface roughness-viscosity model is used to account the effect of surface roughness. The pluglike velocity profile for electro-osmotic flow and the parabolic velocity profile for pressure-driven flow with delay in attaining the centerline velocity are observed. It is found that for electro-osmotic flow, the deviation in velocity profile from a flow in a smooth channel occurs near the wall, whereas in pressure-driven flow, such deviation is dominant in the core region. A superposition of pluglike and parabolic velocity profiles is found in combined electro-osmotic and pressure-driven flow. It is also observed that in the case of combined flow, the deviation in velocity profile from the smooth channel case reduces gradually with the distance from the wall.