Numerical Analysis and Entropy Generation of Electrokinetic Flow of Power-Law Fluid in a Microtriangular Prism

This research aims to study the characteristics of thermal transport and analyse the entropy generation of electroosmotic flow of power-law fluids in a microtriangular prism in the presence of pressure gradient. Considering a fully developed flow subject to constant wall heat flux, the nonlinear electric potential, momentum, and linear heat transfer equations are solved numerically by developing an iterative finite difference method with a nonuniform grid. The thermal efficiency of the model is explored under the light of the second law of thermodynamics. Effect/impact of governing physical parameters on velocity, temperature, Nusselt number, and entropy distributions is studied, and the results are demonstrated graphically; we found that the Nusselt number decreases with the increase of power-law index, and average entropy generation increases with power-law index. We believe that the obtained result in the present study shall be useful for design of energy efficient microsystems which utilize the dual electrokinetic and centrifugal pumping effects.