A comparative study of the flow phenomena of water and mixed solution in a channel with obstruction : influence of shapes

The effect of shapes of the obstruction geometry on the flow phenomena of a non-Newtonian mixed solution in a channel is investigated and compared with that of water (Newtonian fluid). The investigation is carried out at a fixed Reynolds number of 2000 for both the fluids. The shapes used were: flat plate, triangular, semicircular and circular. The reason for choosing a mixed solution, a non-Newtonian fluid, is that the most fluids used in industry are non-Newtonian in nature. The flow phenomena were investigated using velocity measurement (quantitative measurement) and flow visualization (qualitative measurement) images. It was found that the flat plate obstruction geometry produce the maximum reverse flow inside the test channel whereas circular obstruction geometry produce the least reverse flow.