Numerical optimum design for parallel plate flow chamber

Parallel plate flow chamber, which usually has a very small chamber height for causing a uniform distribution of wall shear stress on the lower plate, is a kind of experimental apparatus frequently used to examine the response of biological cells in vitro to a constant shear stress. Previous studies have revealed that the chamber height exist an optimum value to reduce efficaciously the effect of height assembling error on the wall shear stress on the lower plate. In this paper, the influence of fluid viscosity and the geometric sizes on the lumped resistance to flow in a type of common used parallel plate flow chamber is numerically studied, and an expression for lumped resistance is fitted. An optimum height of parallel plate flow chamber is derived from the lumped resistance expression and the wall shear stress expression. If the geometric sizes of parallel plate flow chamber are designed according to the optimum height, not only the effect of height assembling error on the wall shear stress on the lower plate can be reduced efficaciously, but also the differential pressure across the inlet and the outlet is minimum. It is advantageous to increase the comparability of experimental results in the cellular mechanics, because the minimum differential pressure means the minimum pressure gradient and the minimum pressure difference between two different points on the lower plate along the flow direction.