Experimental investigation of flow friction for liquid flow in microchannels

In this paper, investigations on the liquid flow in microchannels with different experimental methods are presented. The experiments were carried out in channels with hydraulic diameter ranging from 30 mum to 344 mum at Reynolds number ranging from 20 to 4000. Based on the experimental data collected and those available in the literature, comparisons and analysis have been carried out to evaluate the possible phenomena occurring in the liquid flow in microchannels. Results obtained show that characteristics of flow in microchannels agree with conventional behaviors predicted by Navier-Stokes equations in the region of those dimensions tested. In this paper, the detailed explanations on experimental results are discussed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.