Experimental investigation on flow characteristics of deionized water in microtubes

The flow characteristics of deionized water in microtubes with diameters ranging from 2 to 30 μm are investigated. The experimental results show that the flow characteristics in microtubes with diameters of 16 μm and larger ones are in agreement with the classical theory. However, as the diameters are decreased to 5 and 2 μm, the nonlinear flow characteristics prevail and the results indicate significant departure of flow characteristics from the predictions of the conventional theory, and the smaller the diameters, the larger the departure. As the Reynolds number increases, the degree of nonlinear flow characteristics decrease gradually and the experimental results are approximately equal to the theoretical expectation. The minimum Reynolds number in this study is only 2.46×10 5. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50574060) and the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2002CCA00700)