Search results

This study aims to minimize the pressure drop across wavy microchannels using secondary branches without compromising its capacity to transfer the heat. The impact of secondary flows on the pressure drop and heat transfer capabilities at different Reynolds numbers are investigated numerically for different wavy microchannels. Finally, different channels are evaluated using performance evaluation criteria to determine their effectiveness.

To investigate the flow and heat transfer capabilities in wavy microchannels having secondary branches, a 3D conjugate heat transfer model based on finite volume method is used. In conventional wavy microchannel, secondary branches are introduced at crest and trough locations. For the numerical simulation, a single symmetrical channel is used to minimize computational time and resources and the flow within the channels remains single-phase and laminar.

The findings indicate that the suggested secondary channels notably improve heat transfer and decrease pressure drop within the channels. At lower flow rates, the secondary channels demonstrate superior performance in terms of heat transfer. However, the performance declines as the flow rate increased. With the same amplitude and wavelength, the introduction of secondary channels reduces the pressure drop compared with conventional wavy channels. Due to the presence of secondary channels, the flow splits from the main channel, and part of the core flow gets diverted into the secondary channel as the flow takes the path of minimum resistance. Due to this flow split, the core velocity is reduced. An increase in flow area helps in reducing pressure drop.

Many complex and intricate microchannels are proposed by the researchers to augment heat dissipation. There are challenges in the fabrication of microchannels, such as surface finish and achieving the required dimensions. However, due to the recent developments in metal additive manufacturing and microfabrication techniques, the complex shapes proposed in this paper are feasible to fabricate.

Wavy channels are widely used in heat transfer and micro-fluidics applications. The proposed wavy microchannels with secondary channels are different when compared to conventional wavy channels and can be used practically to solve thermal challenges. They help achieve a lower pressure drop in wavy microchannels without compromising heat transfer performance.

This study aims to propose the increase of heat dissipation requirements of modern electronic equipment and the fast development of micro-scale manufacturing technologies. The heat transfer mechanism is studied in-depth, especially for its pattern of secondary flow caused by the repeated inversion of centrifugal force. Effects of η on the frictional pressure drop and average Nusselt number are studied and the performance of such microchannel heat sink with various bend amplitudes is comprehensively evaluated. These results can provide important insight into the optimal design of this novel design configuration for microelectronics cooling.

A three-dimensional model based on the finite volume approach and SIMPLEC algorithm is performed to test an innovative serpentine microchannel, which behaves differently from conventional serpentine microchannel due to the significant effect of centrifugal force inversion.

The effect of centrifugal force significantly influences the flow and thermal fields which are responsible for the enhancement in heat transfer coefficient. The number, size and intensity of vortices increase with increasing Re, and the vortices are reformed at every change of the geometry in a periodic fashion. The serpentine microchannel studies more effectively at larger bend amplitude. Pressure fluctuations and temperature variation are greater with increasing bend amplitude.

Several techniques have been developed to augment single-phase convective heat transfer in channels. One technique is to use a serpentine channel that enhances the heat transfer due to flow mixing and periodic interruption of thermal boundary layers. This technique has been applied to micro-heat exchangers, thermal regenerators and mini/microreactors.

The optimal design of this novel design configuration for microelectronics cooling can be attained. It will become an effective cooling technology for solving the increasing of heat dissipation requirements of modern electronic equipment.

The flow and heat transfer characteristics are first presented for the circular serpentine microchannel made up of alternate U-bends without interposed straight segments. The present study first examines the effect of such centrifugal force inversion on velocity contour, pressure distribution and temperature distribution. The patterns of secondary flow along the flow passage caused by the repeated inversion of centrifugal force are further studied in depth. The effect of bend amplitude on the flow and heat transfer is explored and the performance of such microchannel heat sink has been comprehensively evaluated.

This paper aims to investigate the three-dimensional (3D) numerical simulations, based on the Navier–Stokes equations and the energy equation. Forced convection of a mixture of (60:40) percent ethylene glycol and water, was used as the base fluid and CuO nanoparticles, through a serpentine minichannel.

In this simulation, a serpentine mini-channel heat exchanger was simulated. The fluid studied in this simulation was composed of a mixture of (60:40) per cent ethylene glycol and water, was used as the base fluid and CuO nanoparticles. Four slabs and three serpentines were used in this study. The serpentine section is connected to the slab. Three equidistant circular channels (1 mm in diameter) were implemented inside the slab.

Results show that nanoparticles increase the fluid pressure drop and by changing volume fraction of nanoparticles from 0 to 1 per cent, the pressure drop of nanofluids increases between 42and 47 per cent, for Reynolds numbers from 100 to 500. The existence of serpentine bend in the minichannel heat exchanger causes the heat transfer rate to increase. Increase the volume fraction of nanoparticles reduces the fluid temperature at the outlet of the heat exchanger. The numerical results show that in Re = 500, at the beginning of the last slab in middle channel by changing volume fraction of nanoparticles from 0 to 2 per cent, local Nusselt number 57.40 per cent increase. The existence of the serpentine bend causes the heat transfer rate to increase.

Forced convection of a mixture of (60:40) per cent ethylene glycol and water by using of 3D numerical simulations, based on the Navier–Stokes equations.

This study aims to investigate a new circuitous minichannel cold plate (MCP) design involving flow fragmentation. The overall thermal performance and the temperature uniformity analysis are performed and compared with the traditional serpentine design. The substrate thickness and its thermal conductivity are varied to analyse the effect of axial-back conduction due to the conjugate nature of heat transfer.

The traditional serpentine minichannel is modified into five new fragmented designs with two inlets and two outlets. A three-dimensional numerical model involving the effect of conjugate heat transfer with a single-phase laminar fluid flow subjected to constant heat flux is solved using a finite volume-based computational fluid dynamics solver.

The minimum and maximum temperature differences are observed for the two branch fragmented flow designs. The two-branch and middle channel fragmented design shows better temperature uniformity over other designs while the three-branch fragmented designs exhibited better hydrodynamic performance.

MCPs could be used as an indirect liquid cooling method for battery thermal management of pouch and prismatic cells. Coupling the modified cold plates with a battery module and investigating the effect of different battery parameters and environmental effects in a transient state are the prospects for further research.

The study involves several aspects of evaluation for a conclusive decision on optimum channel design by analysing the performance plot between the temperature uniformity index, average base temperature and overall thermal performance. The new fragmented channels are designed in a way to facilitate the fluid towards the outlet in the minimum possible path thereby reducing the pressure drop, also maximizing the heat transfer and temperature uniformity from the substrate due to two inlets and a reversed-flow pattern. Simplified minichannel designs are proposed in this study for practical deployment and ease of manufacturability.

With the increasing heat dissipation of electronic devices, the cooling demand of electronic products is increasing gradually. A water-cooled microchannel heat exchanger is an effective cooling technology for electronic equipment. The structure of a microchannel has great impact on the heat transfer performance of a microchannel heat exchanger. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristic of a microchannel heat exchanger with different reentrant cavities.

The three-dimensional steady, laminar developing flow and conjugate heat transfer governing equations of a plate microchannel heat exchanger are solved using the finite volume method.

At the flow rate range studied in this paper, the microchannel heat exchangers with reentrant cavities present better heat transfer performance and smaller pressure drop. A microchannel heat exchanger with trapezoidal-shaped cavities has best heat transfer performance, and a microchannel heat exchanger with fan-shaped cavities has the smallest pressure drop.

The fluid is incompressible and the inlet temperature is constant.

It is an effective way to enhance heat transfer and reduce pressure drop by adding cavities in microchannels and the data will be helpful as guidelines in the selection of reentrant cavities.

This paper provides the pressure drop and heat transfer performance analysis of microchannel heat exchangers with various reentrant cavities, which can provide reference for heat transfer augmentation of an existing microchannel heat exchanger in a thermal design.

Porous media can provide excellent performance in thermal energy transport applications. This study aims to optimise the square porous slabs (placed in the middle of the channel) parameters to enhance the cooling performance of the jet-impingement microchannel heat sink.

Three levels of each design parameters, i.e. porous slab side, porous slab height, type of material, permeability and quadratic drag factor, are studied; and an L₂₇ orthogonal array is adopted to generate the design points in the specified design space. Optimum designs of the porous media slabs are achieved to minimise the maximum-wall temperature, thermal resistance and pressure drop and maximise the average heat transfer coefficient and figure of merit (FOM).

Results exhibited that the porous media material and permeability are the most, whereas drag factor is the least significant factors with respect to the overall performance of the heat sink. The optimum value of FOM for the proposed hybrid heat sink model belongs to the set of design variables, i.e. 0.4 mm slab side, 0.6 mm slab height, 5 × 10⁻¹¹ m² permeability, 0.21 drag factor and copper as substrate material.

This study proposes a novel design and a hybrid approach to investigate and optimise the hydrothermal performance of jet impingements on porous slabs inserted in the microchannels.

The purpose of this paper is to study the mixing performance of the electrokinetically-driven power-law fluids in a zigzag microchannel.

The Poisson-Boltzmann equation, the Laplace equation, the modified Cauchy momentum equation, and the convection-diffusion equation are solved to describe the flow characteristics and mixing performance of power-law fluids in the zigzag microchannel. A body-fitted grid system and a generalized coordinate transformation method are used to model the grid system and transform the governing equations, respectively. The transformed governing equations are solved numerically using the finite-volume method.

The mixing efficiency of dilatant fluids is higher than that of pseudoplastic fluids. In addition, the mixing efficiency can be improved by increasing the width of the zigzag blocks or extending the total length of the zigzag block region.

The results presented in this study provide a useful insight into potential strategies for enhancing the mixing performance of the power-law fluids in a zigzag microchannel. The results of this study also provide a useful source of reference for the development of efficient and accurate microfluidic systems.

This paper aims to investigate the applicability of 3D-printed molds to be used as a substitute for photolithography in the formation of polymer-based stamps. It proposes leveraging 3D printing as a rapid prototyping tool to be applied to microfluidic fabrication.

Different designs are created using computer-aided design (CAD) software and printed via Makerbot 3D printer. The molds serve as negative reliefs for a PDMS stamp. The stamp is used to apply paraffin wax to chromatography paper, creating hydrophobic barriers and hydrophilic channels. The minimum functional channel widths and barrier widths are determined for the method.

The method is demonstrated to be effective for bypassing the more cost-prohibitive photolithography approach for rapid paper microdevice fabrication. This approach produces functional channels that can be used for on-chip analytical assays. The minimum functional barrier widths and minimum functional channel widths are in good agreement with other published methods for paper-based microchannel fabrication.

The approach cannot generate the high-resolution structures possible with photolithography. Therefore, if higher resolutions are needed for a particular application, this approach is not the best.

The simplicity of the approach introduces an affordable method to create disposable devices that can be used at the point of testing.

The paper satisfies a need for inexpensive, rapid prototyping of paper-based devices. The method is simple and can be used as a tool for introducing labs to microfluidics research.

The purpose of this study is to provide a micromixer for achieving effective mixing of two liquids. The mixing of two liquids is difficult to achieve in microfluidic chips because they cannot form turbulence at small dimensions and velocities.

In this paper, four kinds of passive micromixers based on splitting–recombination and chaotic convection are compared. First, a better E-shape mixing unit based on the previous F-shape mixing unit has been designed. Then, the E-shape mixing units are further combined to form three micromixers (i.e. E-mixer, SESM and FESM).

Finally, the mixing experimental results show that the mixing indexes of E-mixer, SESM and FESM are more than those of F-mixer when the Reynolds number range is from 0.5 to 100. And at Re = 15, the lowest mixing index of E-mixer is 71%, which is the highest of the four micromixers.

At Re = 80, the highest mixing index of F-mixer and E-mixer is 92 and 94 per cent, respectively, and then it begins to decrease. But the mixing index of SESM and FESM remains close to 100 per cent.

In this paper aims to investigate the numerical simulation of the electroosmotic flow of the Carreau-Yasuda model in the rectangular microchannel. Electromagnetic current is generated by applying an effective electric field in the direction of the current.

The non-Newtonian model used is the five-constant Carreau-Yasuda model which the non-Newtonian properties of the fluid can be well modeled. Using the finite difference method, the potential values at all points in the domain are obtained. Then, the governing equations (momentum conservation) and the energy equation are segregated and solved using a finite difference method.

In this paper, the effect of various parameters such as Weisenberg number, electrokinetic diameter, exponential power number on the velocity field and Brinkman and Pecklet dimensionless numbers on temperature distribution are investigated. The results show that increasing the Weissenberg dimensionless number and exponential power and diameter parameters reduces the maximum velocity field in the microchannel.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is reported for the first time.