laminar elbow flow-vortex development
 

Hello all,

i have a stupid question about vortex development in elbows or bends. My Reynoldsnumber in the rectangular microchannel is about 1-100. I have read some literature and i expect some dean-vortices in my domain (after the bend because of the dominating centrifugal force?).
My question is : Do i need a turbulence model to describe this vortices? I think not, because my Reynoldsnumber is quite small and the definition of Turbulence is for me the chaotic oczilation of some flow variables. But with this vortices i dissipate energy so is this possible with laminar visocus model e.g. in ansys fluent or cfx? I m really confused about that. For any tip i m thankfull!

Greetings,

cucko