CHARACTERISTICS OF MICRO SCALE FLOW

Micro fluid research was introduced by early experiments on refrigerators on a chip and chromatograph. Recently, more attentions are promoted with the development of NEMS/MEMS. This paper illustrates the influences of miniaturization through some particular examples in micro thruster array that the miniaturization isn't simply a scale reduction. The basing physical factors of micro fluid flow are different from those of macro scale flow, such as the increment of surface volume ratio related to the domain of flow, the effects of gradient parameters and interface forces. The change of some dominated physical factors or addition of new factors makes that the micro fluid presents some new special behaviors. These characters provide a novel idea to the microchips and micro sensors design, such as to enhance the laminar mixture mentioned in some literatures. The micro scale effects could be reflected in the theory of fluid mechanics, including the correction of basic equations, boundary conditions, etc. But the deep understanding to the flow phenomena is the key point of the development of theory. Some experimental results in the micro channel obtained by LNM are also presented briefly in this paper.