Comments on "Effect of Aspect Ratio and Inlet Manifold Shape on the Laminar-to-

turbulent Transition of Gas Flow in Rectangular Microchannels" by Danish Rehman,

Davide Barattini, Chungpyo Hong and Gian Luca Morini

This paper presents an experimental and numerical analysis of the laminar-to-turbulent

transition of gas flows in rectangular microchannels of various aspect ratios and inlet manifold
shapes. The experimental and numerical data and thorough analysis presented are of great
interest, clearly confirming in particular that there is no deviation from the conventional theory
for microchannel of hydraulic diameter higher than 100 µm and highlighting the role of
compressibility in early transition observed for the smallest channels.
In my opinion, this paper deserves to be published in Experiments in Fluids. The minor
revisions suggested below should however be observed to improve the manuscript before its
publication.

- In the abstract (page 1, line 37), the authors mention the "length of the transitional regime",
but this length is not defined nor analysed in the presented study.

- In the introduction (page 1, line 43 to page 3, line10), it should be mentioned for the cited
works if the fluid used was a liquid or a gas.

- Page 2, line 9 to 11: the sentence "Typically, the small characteristic dimensions…" is not
very clear. Please rephrase it to make it more comprehensible.

- Page 2, line 13: "… Reynolds numbers larger than 2000…"

- Page 2, line 36: "… for conventional channels."

- Page 2, line 49: "…where they who reported that …"

- Page3, line 39: "… (2019) but no such analyses, …"

- Page3, line 47: "… for the prediction of gas flow behavior in transitional regime of gas
flows in MCs."

- In Section 2.1, it should be mentioned that the sensors' uncertainties are given in Table 2.

- The past tense should be employed for the description of the channels fabrication and
characterization (Section 2.2) as well as for the description of the simulations and
experiments conducted in this study.

- Page 4, line 30: "… with spindle rotational rpm and translational speed of 10,000 rpm and
300 mm/min, respectively."

- Page 4, line 32: "… the lower PMMA sheet …"

- Page 4, line 33: "… same material with an O-ring …"

- In Section 2.2, the sentence (page 4, lines 36-38) describing how the test section is checked
for leakages is not clear: the pressure of 10 bars is probably applied on the test section via
the inlet connector, the outlet connector being closed and then the inlet connector is also
closed and the pressure in the test section monitored for 5 hours. This sentence should be
rewritten more clearly.

- In the same Section, it is said (page 4, line 46) that absolute atmospheric pressure is
measured at each pressure port which is not exact.

- Page 7, line 2: "… with an the aim to …"

- Page 7, line 7: "The depth of the channel cross-section …"

- Page 8: The font used in the table under Figure 4a is too small.

- Page 9: It should be mentioned in the caption of Table 1 that the roughness given for
channels SC, VS, RE and BM is not directly obtained by measurements.

- The abbreviations SC, VS, RE and BM are not reminded in the nomenclature.

- Page 9: in the text below Equation (1), uin is not defined.

- The coefficient  is not reminded in the nomenclature.

- Page 9, line 41 and 42: "… and  the kinetic recovery coefficient, is taken as 2 for laminar
and 1 for turbulent flows, …"

- Page 10: the parameter x is not reminded in the nomenclature.

- Page 10, line 16: " Finally, knowing the average pressure and the temperature of …"

- Page 10, lines 17-18: "… velocity of compressible can be obtained using ideal gas and
continuity equations…"

- Page 11, line 14: "… highlighted that uncertainty on the evaluation evaluated friction…"

- Page 11, line 42: "… the analysis of laminar-to-turbulent flow transition of in external
flows."

- Page 12, line 4: "… respective shapes) …"

- Page 12: y+ should be defined precisely.

- Page 12: It is said (line 42) that the outlet is modeled as a sudden expansion. What does it
mean in terms of boundary conditions?

- Page 13: Explain why a ratio L/Dh > 200 must be ensured.

- In Section 3.1: The value of Turbulence Intensity at the inlet is set to 5%. However,
according to the diameter of the reducer which is 8 times the one of the biggest tested
 channel, the flow is most probably laminar in this tube for most of the tested channel
Reynolds numbers. In that case, the turbulence intensity at the entrance would be much
lower. Have you tested different values of the inlet Turbulence Intensity in your
simulations?

- Page 14, lines 12 to 14: The sentence "Energy equation was activated using total energy
option…" is not clear. Please, give more details.

- Page 14, line 44: "… to deduce the required flow quantities.". What are these flow
quantities?

- Page 15, line 3: "… were utilized where numbers of elements are …"

- Page 15, line 23: "… a Fine fine mesh with 320,000 elements …"

- Page 16, line 14: "… compared to rest of the three other MCs."

- Page 16, line 16: "… on the circular tubes of 15.8 mm …"

- Page 16, line 24: "… happens at the very high Re."

- Page 16, line 40: "… and RE inelt inlet shapes ..."

- Page 18: For the channel having a RE inlet geometry, two relative minimum points of
friction factor are observed experimentally. Was it also observed in your numerical
simulations? Can you comment on this point?

- Page 19, line 20: "… experiments were performed at the a discrete set of Re …"

- Page 19, line 22: "… channels having values of the  lower …"

- Page 19: It is said (line 23) that for channels MC5 and MC7 which have almost the same ,
the critical Re is also in the same range. However, this is not the case for MC2 (a=0.62) and
MC3 (a=0.59). Could you comment on this point? In addition, how do you explain the
delayed transition observed for MC2 (Rec close to the value obtained for MC4) which has
an aspect ratio higher than 0.5)? More generally, these experimental data should be also
analysed in light of the numerical study presented in Section 4.2.2.

- Page 21: You should mention in the caption of Figure 8 that the friction factor here is the
semi-local friction factor.

- Page 22, line 1: "… of (Dh), …"

- Page 22, line 5: "… and different aspect ratios values."

- Page 22, line 37: "… especially for within the range of the  between in the range 0.1 and
to 0.25, …"

- Page 24, line 6: "… that the Mach number close to the outlet …"
- Page 24, lines 13 to 15: The sentence "Also the extension of the transition regime …" is not
clear. Please rephrase.

- Page 24, Section 4.2.3:  and G are not reminded in the nomenclature.

- Page 24, line 46: "… in order to predict on the laminar-to-turbulent transition …"

- Page 25, line 3 and 4: "… the predictions of the Obot-Jones model if a value of /Dh of MC
equal to …"

- Page 25, line 15: "… suggest values of the Rec larger than those obtained by the other
researchers …"

- Page 25, caption of Figure 11: "Comparison of current results of Rec and recent literature
with Obot-Jones model for different values of /Dh"

- The first sentence on page 26 is too long and complex: this should be rewritten in a simpler
way.

- Page 26, line 6: "… that the Eq. 11 proposed by …"

- Page 26, line 7: "… follow similar trends, but they predict …"

- Page 26, lines 17 to 21: The way in which these 2 sentences are written is confusing. I would
suggest the following: "Combining all the results presented in Figure 11, it can be concluded
that a clear trend there exists between  and Rec which suggests an increase of Rec with a
decrease of . Such increase becomes significant for lower values of  (27% in terms of
Rec when  goes from 0.5 to 0.1) and is insignificant for higher values of (8% when  goes
from 1 to 0.5).

- Page 26, line 22: "… order of magnitude of the than the typical uncertainty …"

- Page 26, line 28: "This signifies that the effect of …"

- Page 27, line 7: "… the effect due to aspect ratio is separated by from the effect …"

- Page 27, line 9: "… becomes evident for aspect ratios lower than …"