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The purpose of this study is three-dimensional flow and heat transfer investigation of water/Al₂O₃ nanofluid inside a microchannel with different cross-sections in two-phase mode.

The effect of microchannel walls geometry (trapezoidal, sinusoidal and stepped microchannels) on flow characteristics and also changing circular cross section to trapezoidal cross section in laminar flow at Reynolds numbers of 50, 100, 300 and 600 were investigated. In this study, two-phase water/Al₂O₃ nanofluid is simulated by the mixture model, and the effect of volume fraction of nanoparticles on performance evaluation criterion (PEC) is studied. The accuracy of obtained results was compared with the experimental and numerical results of other similar papers.

Results show that in flow at lower Reynolds numbers, sinusoidal walls create a pressure drop in pure water flow which improves heat transfer to obtain PEC < 1. However, in sinusoidal and stepped microchannel with higher Reynolds numbers, PEC > 1. Results showed that the stepped microchannel had higher pressure drop, better thermal performance and higher PEC than other microchannels.

Review of previous studies showed that existing papers have not compared and investigated nanofluid in a two-phase mode in inhomogeneous circular, stepped and sinusoidal cross and trapezoidal cross-sections by considering the effect of changing channel shape, which is the aim of the present paper.

In the present study, laminar steady flow of nanofluid through a trapezoidal channel is studied by using of finite volume method. The main aim of this paper is to study the effect of changes in geometric parameters, including internal and external dimensions on the behavior of heat transfer and fluid flow. For each parameter, an optimum ratio will be presented.

The results showed that in a channel cell, changing any geometric parameter may affect the temperature and flow field, even though the volume of the channel is kept constant. For a relatively small hydraulic diameter, microchannels with different angles have a similar dimensionless heat flux, while channels with bigger dimensions show various values of dimensionless heat flux. By increasing the angles of trapezoidal microchannels, dimensionless heat flux per unit of volume increases. As a result, the maximum and minimum heat transfer rate occurs in a trapezoidal microchannel with 75° and 30 internal’s, respectively. In the study of dimensionless heat flux rate with hydraulic diameter variations, an optimum hydraulic diameter (Dh) was observed in which the heat transfer rate per unit volume attains maximum value.

This optimum state is predicted to happen at a side angle of 75° and hydraulic diameter of 290 µm. In addition, in trapezoidal microchannel with higher aspect ratio, dimensionless heat flux rate is lower. Changing side angles of the channels and pressure drop have the same effect on pressure drop. For a constant pressure drop, if changing the side angles causes an increase in the rectangular area of the channel cross-section and the effect of the sides are not felt by the fluid, then the dimensionless heat flux will increase. By increasing the internal aspect ratio (t_2/t_3), the amount of t_3 decreases, and consequently, the conduction resistance of the hot surface decreases.

The effects of geometry of the microchannel, including internal and external dimensions on the behavior of heat transfer and fluid flow for pressure ranges between 2 and 8 kPa.

According to very small dimensions of the microchannels, producing a microchannel with smooth surfaces is approximately impossible. The surface roughness can have a specific effect on microchannel performances. This paper aims to investigate the changes in friction and pressure drop in the microchannels by considering the different roughness elements on microchannel wall and changes in elementary geometry and flow conditions. Results show a significant effect of roughness on the pressure drop and friction.

Two-dimensional fluid flow in the rough microchannels is analyzed using FLUENT. Microchannels have a height of 50 µm. Water at room temperature (25°C) has been used as working fluid. The Reynolds numbers are considered in laminar flow range and from 50 to 300.

The results show that the value of friction factor reduces nonlinearly with an increase in Reynolds number. But, the pressure drops and the Poiseuille number in the microchannels increase with an increase in Reynolds number. The values of the pressure drop and the friction factor increase by increasing the height and size of the roughness elements, but these values reduce with an increase in the distance of roughness elements.

The roughness elements types in this research are rectangular, trapezoidal, elliptical, triangular and complex (composed of multiple types of roughness elements). The effects of the Reynolds number, roughness height, roughness distance and roughness size on the pressure drop and friction in the rough microchannels are investigated and discussed. Furthermore, differences between the effects of five types of roughness elements are identified.

This study aims to model the nanofluid flow in microchannel heat sinks having the same length and hydraulic diameter but different cross-sections (circular, trapezoidal and square).

The nanofluid is graphene nanoplatelets-silver/water, and the heat transfer in laminar flow was investigated. The range of coolant Reynolds number in this investigation was 200 ≤ Re ≤ 1000, and the concentrations of nano-sheets were from 0 to 0.1 vol. %.

Results show that higher temperature leads to smaller Nusselt number, pressure drop and pumping power, and increasing solid nano-sheet volume fraction results in an expected increase in heat transfer. However, the influence of temperature on the friction factor is insignificant. In addition, by increasing the Reynolds number, the values of pressure drop, pumping power and Nusselt number augments, but friction factor diminishes.

Data extracted from a recent experimental work were used to obtain thermo-physical properties of nanofluids.

The effects of temperature, microchannel cross-section shape, the volume concentration of nanoparticles and Reynolds number on thermal and hydraulics behavior of the nanofluid were investigated. Results are presented in terms of velocity, Nusselt number, pressure drop, friction loss and pumping power in various conditions. Validation of the model against previous papers showed satisfactory agreement.

This study aims to numerically investigate the heat transfer and laminar forced and two-phase flow of Water/Cu nanofluid in a rectangular microchannel with oblique ribs with angle of attacks equal to 0-45°. This simulation was conducted in the range of Reynolds numbers of 5-120 in volume fractions of 0, 2 and 4 per cent of solid nanoparticles in three-dimensional space.

This study investigates the effect of the changes of angle of attack of rectangular rib on heat transfer and hydrodynamics of two-phase flow. This study was done in three-dimensional space and simulation was done with finite volume method. SIMPLEC algorithm and second-order discretization of equations were used to increase the accuracy of results. The usage of nanofluid, application of rips with different angles of attacks and using the two-phase mixture method is the distinction of this paper compared with other studies.

The results of this research revealed that the changing angle of attack of ribs is an effective factor in heat transfer enhancement. On the other hand, the existence of rib on the internal surfaces of a microchannel increases friction coefficient. By increasing the volume fraction of nanoparticles, due to the augmentation of fluid density and viscosity, the pressure drop increases significantly. For all of the angle of attacks studied in this paper, the maximum rate of performance evaluation criterion has been obtained in Reynolds number of 30 and the minimum amount of performance evaluation criterion was been obtained in Reynolds numbers of 5 and 120.

Many studies have been done in the field of heat transfer in ribbed microchannel. In this paper, the laminar flow in the ribbed microchannel Water/Cu nanofluid in a rectangular microchannel by using two-phase mixture method is numerically investigated with different volume fractions (0-4 per cent), Reynolds numbers (5-120) and angle of attacks of rectangular rib in the indented microchannel (0-45°).

In this paper, the forced convection heat transfer of the nanofluid composed of water and AL2O3 nanoparticles is simulated in a two-dimensional horizontal microchannel by injecting the lower wall. The upper wall of the microchannel is 303 K at temperature TH. On the lower wall of the microchannel, there are three holes for flow injection. Other parts of the wall are insulated. In this paper, the effect of parameters such as Reynolds number, slip coefficient and volume fraction of nanoparticles is investigated.

The boundary condition of the slip velocity is considered on the upper and lower walls of the microchannel. In this work, the flow of nanofluid in the microchannel is considered to be slow, permanent and Newtonian. In the present study, the effect of injection through the microchannel wall on the slip velocity is examined for the first time.

The results are also presented as velocity profiles and Nusselt number diagrams. It was found that the Nusselt number increases with increasing the amount of slip coefficient of velocity and the weight percentage of solid nanoparticles. The rate of this increase is higher in the high values of the Reynolds number.

A novel paper concerned the simulation of cross-flow injection effects on the slip velocity and temperature domain of a nanofluid flow inside a microchannel.

With respect to two new subjects, i.e. nanofluids and microchannels, in heat transfer systems and modern techniques used for building them, this paper aims to study on effect of using aluminum oxide nanoparticles in non-Newtonian fluid of aqueous solution of carboxy-methyl cellulose in microtube and through application of different slip coefficients to achieve various qualities on surface of microtube.

Simultaneously, the effect of presence of nanoparticles and phenomenon of slip and temperature jump has been explored in non-Newtonian nanofluid in this essay. The assumption of homogeneity of nanofluid and fixed temperature of wall in microtube has been used in modeling processes.

The results have been presented as diagrams of velocity, temperature and Nusselt Number and the investigations have indicated that addition of nanoparticles to the base fluid and increase in microtube slip coefficient might improve rate of heat transfer in microtube.

The flow of non-Newtonian nanofluid of aqueous solution of carboxy methyl cellulose-aluminum oxide has been determined in a microtube for the first time.

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.

Although many studies have been conducted on the nanofluid flow in microtubes, this paper, for the first time, aims to investigate the effects of nanoparticle diameter and concentration on the velocity and temperature fields of turbulent non-Newtonian Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC)/copper oxide (CuO) nanofluid in a three-dimensional microtube. Modeling has been done using low- and high-Reynolds turbulent models. CMC/CuO was modeled using power law non-Newtonian model. The authors obtained interesting results, which can be helpful for engineers and researchers that work on cooling of electronic devices such as LED, VLSI circuits and MEMS, as well as similar devices.

Present numerical simulation was performed with finite volume method. For obtaining higher accuracy in the numerical solving procedure, second-order upwind discretization and SIMPLEC algorithm were used. For all Reynolds numbers and volume fractions, a maximum residual of 10⁻⁶ is considered for saving computer memory usage and the time for the numerical solving procedure.

In constant Reynolds number and by decreasing the diameter of nanoparticles, the convection heat transfer coefficient increases. In Reynolds numbers of 2,500, 4,500 and 6,000, using nanoparticles with the diameter of 25 nm compared with 50 nm causes 0.34 per cent enhancement of convection heat transfer coefficient and Nusselt number. Also, in Reynolds number of 2,500, by increasing the concentration of nanoparticles with the diameter of 25 nm from 0.5 to 1 per cent, the average Nusselt number increases by almost 0.1 per cent. Similarly, In Reynolds numbers of 4,500 and 6,000, the average Nusselt number increases by 1.8 per cent.

The numerical simulation was carried out for three nanoparticle diameters of 25, 50 and 100 nm with three Reynolds numbers of 2,500, 4,500 and 6,000. Constant heat flux is on the channel, and the inlet fluid becomes heated and exists from it.

The authors obtained interesting results, which can be helpful for engineers and researchers that work on cooling of electronic devices such as LED, VLSI circuits and MEMS, as well as similar devices.

This manuscript is an original work, has not been published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. About the competing interests, the authors declare that they have no competing interests.

The purpose of this study is two phase modeling of Water/Cu nanofluid forced convection in different arrangements of elliptical tube banks in a two-dimensional space.

The arrangements of tube banks have been regarded as equal spacing triangle (ES), equilateral triangle (ET) and the rotated square (RS). The obtained results indicate that, among the investigated arrangements, the RS arrangement has the maximum value of heat transfer with cooling fluid. Also, the changes of Nusselt number and the local friction factor are under the influence of three main factors including volume fraction of slid nanoparticles, the changes of fluid velocity parameters on the curved surface of tube and flow separation after crossing from a specified angle of fluid rotation.

In Reynolds number of 250 and in all arrangements of the tube banks, the behavior of Nusselt number is almost the same and the separation of flow happens in almost 155-165 degrees from fluid rotation on surface. In RS arrangement, due to the strength of vortexes after fluid separation, better mixture is created and because of this reason, after the separation zone, the level of local Nusselt number graph enhances significantly.

In this research, the laminar and two-phase flow of Water/Cu nanofluid in tube banks with elliptical cross section has been numerically investigated in a two-dimensional space with different longitudinal arrangements. In this study, the effects of using nanofluid, different arrangements of tube banks and the elliptical cross section on heat transfer and cooling fluid flow among the tube banks of heat exchanger have been numerically simulated by using finite volume method.