Deriving the scaling law for the Reynolds number I'm trying to derive a scaling law for the Reynold

Amappyaccon22j7e

Amappyaccon22j7e

Answered question

2022-05-09

Deriving the scaling law for the Reynolds number
I'm trying to derive a scaling law for the Reynolds number, to get a better understanding of how it changes for microsystem applications, but I'm getting stuck. From textbook tables I should end up with l 2 , but can't get there. The goal is to find a simplistic relation of Reynolds number and the system dimension.
This is my reasoning so far:
Considering a tube
R e = ρ v 2 R μ
v = Q A = Q π R 2
From Hagen-Poiseuille:
Q = δ P π R 4 8 μ L ,
therefore:
v = δ P π R 4 8 μ L π R 2 = δ P π R 4 8 μ L π R 2 = δ P R 2 8 μ L
Replacing v on R e
R e = ρ δ P R 2 2 R 8 μ L μ = ρ δ P R 3 2 8 μ 2 L
From this, if I consider the δ P as constant with the size scaling, ρ and μ are material properties that are constant at different scales, I get:
R e R 3 L
I can only think that I could consider it as l 3 l = l 2 but doesn't seem right.
What am I missing here?

Answer & Explanation

Raiden Williamson

Raiden Williamson

Beginner2022-05-10Added 18 answers

The textbook is trying to show you the effect of varying only R e while keeping everything else the same while you scale your system. Therefore you need to keep geometric parameters (among others) of your system constant. Aspect ratio of the system, L / R, is a geometric parameter, which must therefore be kept constant. It is in this sense that R e R 2 . In other words, if aspect ratio of the system is kept constant (assuming that is the only geometric parameter in the problem), then R e R 2

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