Flow behaviour analysis and experimental investigation for emitter micro-channels

The existing research of the flow behavior in emitter micro-channels mainly focuses on the single-phase flow behavior. And the recent micro-particle image velocimetry (PIV) experimental research on the flow characteristics in various micro-channels mainly focuses on the single-phase fluid flow. However, using an original-size emitter prototype to perform the experiments on the two-phase flow characteristics of the labyrinth channels is seldom reported. In this paper, the practical flow of water, mixed with sand escaped from filtering, in the labyrinth channel, is investigated. And some research work on the clogging mechanism of the labyrinth channel's structure is conducted. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis has been performed on liquid-solid two-phase flow in labyrinth-channel emitters. Based on flow visualization technology-micro-PIV, the flow in labyrinth channel has been photographed and recorded. The path line graph and velocity vector graph are obtained through the post-treatment of experimental results. The graphs agree well with CFD analysis results, so CFD analysis can be used in optimal design of labyrinth-channel emitters. And the optimized anti-clogging structures of the rectangular channel and zigzag channel have been designed here. The CFD numerical simulation and the micro-PIV experiments analysis on labyrinth-channel emitter, make the "black box" of the flow behavior in the emitter channel broken. Furthermore, the proposed research promotes an advanced method to evaluate the emitter's performance and can be used to conducting the optimal design of the labyrinth-channel emitters.