A review of flow and heat transfer in rotating microchannels

Rotating microchannels are integral part of centrifugally actuated miniaturized microfluidic devices, which have important applications in chemical analysis and biomedical diagnostics. As the field of centrifugal microfluidics continues to evolve, it is becoming imperative to understand the fundamental principles of fluid flow inside microchannels under the influence of centrifugal and Coriolis forces. These forces arise as a consequence of expressing the governing equations in rotating Eulerian reference frame and change the flow pattern significantly from the symmetric parabolic profile of a non-rotating channel. In this paper, we have summarized the recent advances in the area of fluid flow and heat transfer applications in radially rotating microchannels. A review of experimental and numerical studies available in the current literature is performed and issues with the applicability of analytical correlations for conventional macro-sized channels to describe the microscale flow phenomena have been discussed. From this state of the art review, it is evident that further systematic investigations are needed for a clear understanding of the transport mechanism associated with the flow and heat transfer inside rotating microchannels. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.