Transient thermal characterisation of hot plates

The paper will present the methodology and the results of measuring and simulating the thermal transient behaviour of micro hotplates. The investigated devices were designed for integrated gas sensors of calorimetric operation principle, e.g. micro-pellistors, heat conductivity type sensors or mass flow meters. They consist of a platinum heater filament embedded in silicon-nitride membranes that can be used both for heating and temperature sensing.     

Thermal conductivity measurement of submicrometer-scale silicon dioxide films by an extended micro-Raman method

The micro-Raman method is a noncontact and nondestructive method for thin film thermal conductivity measurements. To apply the micro-Raman method, however, the thickness of the film must be at least tens of micrometers. An analytical heat transfer model is presented in this work to extend the micro-Raman measurement method to measure the thermal conductivity of thin films with submicrometer- or nanometer-scale thickness. The model describes the heat transfer process in the thin film and substrate considering the effects of thin film thickness, interface thermal resistance, thermal conductivity of the thin film and substrate. From this heat transfer model, an analytical expression for the thermal conductivity of the thin film is derived. Experiments were successfully performed to measure the thermal conductivity of 200, 300 and 500 nm thickness silicon dioxide films using the extended micro-Raman measurement method, with results confirming the accuracy and validity of the extended model.     

A parametrized three-dimensional model for MEMS thermal shear-stress sensors

This paper presents an accurate and efficient model of MEMS thermal shear-stress sensors featuring a thin-film hotwire on a vacuum-isolated dielectric diaphragm. We consider three-dimensional (3-D) heat transfer in sensors operating in constant-temperature mode, and describe sensor response with a functional relationship between dimensionless forms of hotwire power and shear stress. This relationship is parametrized by the diaphragm aspect ratio and two additional dimensionless parameters that represent heat conduction in the hotwire and diaphragm. Closed-form correlations are obtained to represent this relationship, yielding a MEMS sensor model that is highly efficient while retaining the accuracy of three-dimensional heat transfer analysis. The model is compared with experimental data, and the agreement in the total and net hotwire power, the latter being a small second-order quantity induced by the applied shear stress, is respectively within 0.5% and 11% when uncertainties in sensor geometry and material properties are taken into account. The model is then used to elucidate thermal boundary layer characteristics for MEMS sensors, and in particular, quantitatively show that the relatively thick thermal boundary layer renders classical shear-stress sensor theory invalid for MEMS sensors operating in air. The model is also used to systematically study the effects of geometry and material properties on MEMS sensor behavior, yielding insights useful as practical design guidelines.     

Response time of thermal flow sensors with air as fluid

Due to their fast response time miniaturized thermal flow sensors can be applied well for the measurement of instationary gas flow. For some applications, the response time of the sensor must be known with high accuracy. We investigated three methods for response time determination with air: a jump of temperature induced by electric heating, a gas velocity step made by a membrane burst and acoustic phase shifts between sound velocity and sound pressure (standing and traveling waves). The measurements have shown that the response time of thermal flow sensors is a function of flow velocity. For stagnant flow, the thermal response time is about 4.5 ms for our thermal flow sensors. With increasing flow from the heater to the thermopiles, the heat transfer rises. Thus, the response time is faster and decreases to about 1 ms.     

Design and simulation of a thermo transfer type MEMS based micro flow sensor for arterial blood flow measurement

Thermo transfer type MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical System) based micro flow sensing device have promising potential to solve the limitation of implantable arterial blood flow rate monitoring. The present paper emphasizes on modeling and simulation of MEMS based micro flow sensing device, which will be capable of implantable arterial blood flow rate measurement. It describes the basic design and model architecture of thermal type micro flow sensor. A pair of thin film micro heaters is designed through MEMS micro machining process and simulated using CoventorWare; a finite element based numerical code. A rectangular cross section micro channel has been modeled where in micro heater and thermal sensors are embedded using the same CoventorWare tools. Some promising and interesting results of thermal dissipation depending upon very small amount of flow rate through the micro channel are investigated. It is observed that measuring the variation of temperature difference between downstream and upstream, the variation of fluid flow rate in the micro channel can be measured. The numerical simulation results also shows that the temperature distribution profile of the heated surface depends upon microfluidic flow rate i.e. convective heat transfer is directly proportional to the microfluidic flow rate on the surface of the insulating membrane. The simplified analytical model of the thermo transfer type flow sensor is presented and verified by simulation results, which are very promising for application in arterial blood flow rate measuring in implantable micro devices for continuous monitoring of cardiac output.     

Analytical study of resistive MEM gas flow meters

An analytical study for micro-electro mechanical system (MEMS) type gas flow meters is presented. A bulk micromachined structure for the flow meter is proposed. It consists of a micro resistive heater and two temperature sensors situated at the opposite sides of the heater. The silicon substrate is considered to be thermally isolated from the heater by a stacked (SiO₂/Si₃N₄) membrane on a bulk micromachined cavity. The flow meter is considered to work on the bases of displacement of temperature profile around the heating element due to the gas flow. The obtained equation from the analytical model is applied to a specific device dimension. The calculated results show a linear relationship between the gas flow velocity and the device response when the heater and sensing elements separation is about 80 μm. The linearity decreases for increased separation between the heater and the sensing elements as well as the gas flow velocity. The proposed device is also simulated by finite element method using Ansys/Flotran software. The simulation results are in a good agreement with the analytical results. Our analytical results can assist the MEMS gas flow meter designers to define the position of the sensing elements with respect to the heater accurately, depending on the required output signal linearity and gas flow velocity.     

Local heat transfer process and pressure drop in a micro-channel integrated with arrays of temperature and pressure sensors

One of the most important components in micro-fluidic system is the micro-channel which involves complicated flow and transport process. This study presents micro-scale thermal fluid transport process inside a micro-channel with a height of 37 μm. The channel can be heated on the bottom wall and is integrated with arrays of pressure and temperature sensors which can be used to measure and determine the local heat transfer and pressure drop. A more simplified model with modification of Young’s Modulus from the experimental test is used to design and fabricate the arrays of pressure sensors. Both the pressure sensors and the channel wall use polymer materials which greatly simplify the fabrication process. In addition, the polymer materials have a very low thermal conductivity which significantly reduces the heat loss from the channel to the ambient that the local heat transfer can be accurately measured. The air flow in the micro-channel can readily become compressible even at a very low Reynolds number condition. Therefore, simultaneous measurement of both the local pressure drop and the temperature on the heated wall is required to determine the local heat transfer. Comparison of the local heat transfer for a compressible air flow in micro-channel is made with the theoretical prediction based on incompressible air flow in large-scale channel. The comparison has clarified many of the conflicting results among different works.     

MEMS Scanning Calorimeter With Serpentine-Shaped Platinum Resistors for Characterizations of Microsamples

We report a new design and operation of a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) for heat-capacity measurements. The sensor consists of a 500-nm silicon nitride membrane supported by four bridges on a silicon wafer. On one side of the membrane, a serpentine-shaped platinum layer is deposited and used as both a resistive heater and a thermometer during the DSC measurement. This MEMS design can provide a self-alignment between the DSC cell and the material to be analyzed in order to prevent its deposition on the sloping side walls of the silicon frame. According to FEM calculations, the system exhibits good thermal isolation and high uniformities in the temperature field in the sensing area of the device. To evaluate the use of this calorimetric device for liquid samples, we measure the heat of vaporization of nanoliter-scale water droplets with high preciseness using the calorimeter in both scanning and heat conduction modes.     

Design and batch fabrication of probes for sub-100 nm scanningthermal microscopy

A batch fabrication process has been developed for making cantilever probes for scanning thermal microscopy (SThM) with spatial resolution in the sub-100 nm range. A heat transfer model was developed to optimize the thermal design of the probes. Low thermal conductivity silicon dioxide and silicon nitride were chosen for fabricating the probe tips and cantilevers, respectively, in order to minimize heat loss from the sample to the probe and to improve temperature measurement accuracy and spatial resolution. An etch process was developed for making silicon dioxide tips with tip radius as small as 20 nm. A thin film thermocouple junction was fabricated at the tip end with a junction height that could be controlled in the range of 100-600 nm. These thermal probes have been used extensively for thermal imaging of micro- and nano-electronic devices with a spatial resolution of 50 nm. This paper presents measurement results of the steady state and dynamic temperature responses of the thermal probes and examines the wear characteristics of the probes     

Microscale thermal fluid transport process in a microchannel integrated with arrays of temperature and pressure sensors

One of the most important components in a microfluidic system is the microchannel which involves complicated flow and transport process. This work presents microscale thermal fluid transport process inside a microchannel with a height of 37 μm. The channel can be heated on the bottom wall and is integrated with arrays of pressure and temperature sensors which can be used to measure and determine the local heat transfer and pressure drop. A more simplified model with modification of Young’s Modulus from the experimental test is used to design and fabricate the arrays of pressure sensors. Both the pressure sensors and the channel wall use polymer materials which greatly simplifies the fabrication process. In addition, the polymer materials have a very low thermal conductivity which significantly reduces the heat loss from the channel to the ambient that the local heat transfer can be accurately measured. The airflow in the microchannel can readily become compressible even at a very low Reynolds number condition. Therefore, simultaneous measurement of both the local pressure drop and the temperature on the heated wall are required to determine the local heat transfer. Comparison of the local heat transfer for a compressible airflow in microchannel is made with the theoretical prediction based on incompressible airflow in large scale channel. The comparison has clarified many of the conflicting results among different works.     

Electro-thermal analysis of an embedded boron diffused microheater for thruster applications

One of the important design criteria of micropropulsion systems in particular VLM is the type of microheater, its layout and placement with a view to achieve uniform heating of propellant, fast heat transfer efficiency with minimum input power. Thrust produced by microthruster not only depends on the structural geometry of the thruster and propellant flow rate, but also on the chamber temperature to produce super saturated dry stream at the exit nozzle. Detailed design of microheater in thermal and electrical domains using co-solvers available in MEMS software tools along with material’s thermal property, temperature dependence of electrical resistivity and thermal conductivity have been considered in the present work to achieve precise modeling and experimental accuracy of heater operation. The chamber temperature was analytically calculated and subsequently the required resistance and power were estimated. The boron diffused microheaters of meanderline configuration in silicon substrate has been designed and its finite element based electro-thermal modeling was employed to predict the heater characteristics. The variation of microheater temperature with time, applied voltage and along chamber length has been determined from the modeling. Subsequently the designed microheater was realized on silicon wafer by lithography and boron diffusion process and its detailed testing was evaluated. It was found that boron diffused resistor of 820 Ω can generate 405 K temperature with applied input power 2.4 W. Finally the simulated results were validated by experimental data.     

A Novel Benzocyclobutene-Based Device for Studying the Dynamics of Heat Transfer During the Nucleation Process

A novel microelectromechanical device has been developed to study the details of the heat transfer mechanisms involved at the nucleation site for the nucleate boiling process. This device enables quantifying the magnitude, time period of activation, and specific areas of influence of different mechanisms of heat transfer from the surface with a resolution several times greater than previously reported. This is achieved through the use of an array of embedded temperature sensors within a carefully designed dual-layer (silicon and benzocyclobutene) wall which allows for the accurate calculation of local heat flux, circumventing difficulties encountered when using existing methods. The sensors are radially distributed around the nucleation site. Heat is supplied to the wall by a thin film heater fabricated on the outer nonwetted surface. Single bubbles are generated at the center of the array while the temperatures and the bubble images are recorded with a sampling frequency of 8 kHz. The temperature data provided the necessary thermal boundary conditions to numerically calculate the surface heat flux with an unprecedented radial resolution of 22-40 mum. Fabrication, characterization, and the ability of the developed device to elucidate the heat transfer aspects of the nucleation process are demonstrated.     

Thermal conductivity measurement of liquids in a microfluidic device

A new microfluidic-based approach to measuring liquid thermal conductivity is developed to address the requirement in many practical applications for measurements using small (microlitre) sample size and integration into a compact device. The approach also gives the possibility of high-throughput testing. A resistance heater and temperature sensor are incorporated into a glass microfluidic chip to allow transmission and detection of a planar thermal wave crossing a thin layer of the sample. The device is designed so that heat transfer is locally one-dimensional during a short initial time period. This allows the detected temperature transient to be separated into two distinct components: a short-time, purely one-dimensional part from which sample thermal conductivity can be determined and a remaining long-time part containing the effects of three-dimensionality and of the finite size of surrounding thermal reservoirs. Identification of the one-dimensional component yields a steady temperature difference from which sample thermal conductivity can be determined. Calibration is required to give correct representation of changing heater resistance, system layer thicknesses and solid material thermal conductivities with temperature. In this preliminary study, methanol/water mixtures are measured at atmospheric pressure over the temperature range 30–50°C. The results show that the device has produced a measurement accuracy of within 2.5% over the range of thermal conductivity and temperature of the tests. A relation between measurement uncertainty and the geometric and thermal properties of the system is derived and this is used to identify ways that error could be further reduced.     

INV-WATFLX,a code for simultaneous estimation of soil properties and planar vector water flux from fully or partly functioning needles of a penta-needle heat-pulse probe

Soil thermal properties and water fluxes are fundamental for understanding water and heat transport phenomena in the vadose zone. Processes of interest include quantifying infiltration and runoff in addition to solute transport rates, which are of great interest in many scientific and engineering applications where water flux and temperature are key parameters. In this study, INV-WATFLX was developed for simultaneously fitting thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity and heat velocities in a plane normal to a penta-needle heat-pulse probe (PHPP) using temperature rise measurements in a porous medium. The inverse problem is formulated as the minimization of a generalized least-squares criterion by means of a Gauss–Newton–Levenberg–Marquardt method. Fitted temperature measurements following a heat-pulse injection were calculated from an analytical solution of temperature rise derived at the four thermistor positions of the PHPP. The INV-WATFLX code was tested with a set of synthetic simulations using CORE^2D V4. Relative errors of thermal diffusivity, conductivity, bulk volume heat capacity, and water fluxes estimated in INV-WATFLX to their prescribed values in the synthetic simulations were smaller than 3%. We also evaluated the ability of INV-WATFLX to provide estimation of thermal properties and fluxes from temperature rise measured by a sub-set of the four thermistors. INV-WAFLX was applied to laboratory column flow experiments for water flux estimation using a PHPP. Water fluxes estimated using INV-WATFLX was comparable to independently measured fluxes. The new code provides reliable estimation of soil thermal properties and water fluxes from temperature rise using heat-pulse measurements.     

基于有限元模拟的薄膜热流计结构设计及优化

精确的热流测量对航空航天领域发动机设计及使用过程至关重要.薄膜热流计以其体积小、热容量小、干扰小、不破坏部件表面气流等显著优势,成为发动机热端部件表面热流测量的新方法.针对传统工程经验设计薄膜热流计精确度不高且迭代耗时长的缺点,基于有限元仿真模拟方法,建立了一种薄膜热流计有限元分析模型,综合分析了热流密度、热阻层厚度、热电堆厚度等因素对热流计冷热结点温度梯度的影响,提出薄膜热流计优化思路.分析结果表明,优化后的薄膜热流计具有更出色的热学性能与电学性能.     

Molecular dynamics–continuum hybrid simulation for condensation of gas flow in a microchannel

A molecular dynamics-continuum coupling method combining fluid flow and heat transfer is developed to study the condensation process of gas flow in a microchannel. The computational domain is decomposed into particle (P), continuum (C) and overlap (O) regions with solving approaches of molecular dynamics simulation, finite volume method and the developed coupling method, respectively. Continuities of momentum and energy in O region are ensured by constraint dynamics and the Langevin method. The validity of the developed method is confirmed by a good agreement between hybrid results and analytical solutions from two cases including the unsteady dynamical and thermal problems. For the condensation process of gas flow, the hybrid transient velocity and temperature fields indicate that the process does not progress smoothly but wavily with noticeable fluctuation, leading to oscillation in temperature field and recirculation flow in velocity field. Analysis based on heat and mass transfer is carried out in P region, and the Kapitza resistance and the thermal conductivity in liquid are obtained with the satisfying agreement with experimental data, which shows the availability of the developed model for the investigation on the thermal boundary resistance. The good performance had demonstrated that the developed coupling method and computational model are available to provide a multiscale overview in dynamical and thermal problems including phase-transition from nanoscale to microscale, which will show significantly potential in micro fluidics and thermal engineering.     

Anti-diffusive methods for hyperbolic heat transfer

The hyperbolic heat transfer equation is a model used to replace the Fourier heat conduction for heat transfer of extremely short time duration or at very low temperature. Unlike the Fourier heat conduction, in which heat energy is transferred by diffusion, thermal energy is transferred as wave propagation at a finite speed in the hyperbolic heat transfer model. Therefore methods accurate for Fourier heat conduction may not be suitable for hyperbolic heat transfer. In this paper, we present two anti-diffusive methods, a second-order TVD-based scheme and a fifth-order WENO-based scheme, to solve the hyperbolic heat transfer equation and extend them to two-dimension, including a nonlinear application caused by temperature-dependent thermal conductivity. Several numerical examples are applied to validate the methods. The current solution is compared in one-dimension with the analytical one as well as the one obtained from a high-resolution TVD scheme. Numerical results indicate that the fifth-order anti-diffusive method is more accurate than the high-resolution TVD scheme and the second-order anti-diffusive method in solving the hyperbolic heat transfer equation.     

Gas mixture analysis using silicon micro-reactor systems

A novel way of operating metal-oxide gas sensors is demonstrated that extends the gas-analyzing facilities of conventional thin-film gas sensors. In our approach, thin-film metal-oxide gas sensors on micro-machined heater substrates are embedded into tiny silicon micro-chambers to form micro-reactor devices. Analyzing samples of polluted air, such micro-reactors can be operated either in constant-flow or no-flow modes. Whereas in the first mode, essentially normal sensor behavior is observed, gas depletion reactions are observed in the latter. Such depletion reactions are shown to provide, in a straightforward way, analytical information about gas mixtures which is difficult to obtain under normal sensor operating conditions. As an application example, we demonstrate how a micro-reactor device can be used to analyze samples of polluted air for their O₃ and NO ₂ contents     

一种新型MEMS微波功率传感器的理论模型与优化设计

提出了一种新型的MEMS微波功率传感器.与传统的结构相比,新结构具有测量误差小、设计简单、使用方便等显著优点.然后在全面考虑了热传导、热对流、热辐射三种传热机制的基础上,对传感器的主要部分即热电堆建立了热模型,进而导出了灵敏度、时间常数、噪声的理论解析式.最后根据拉格朗日乘数法原理,以给定的时间常数和噪声大小为约束条件,求得灵敏度达最大时热偶长度和串联数目的最佳值.     

A novel wind sensor concept based on thermal image measurement using a temperature sensor array

This paper presents a novel concept of designing wind sensors without moving parts. The measurement concept is based on the evaluation of the thermal image around a circular heater. Forced convection, caused by the wind, modulates this thermal image, which reveals information about both flow velocity and flow direction. The new concept uses an array of temperature sensors to capture the thermal image. Temperature data are transferred to a computer or a micro controller by a multiplexer. A program running on the computer extracts the values of speed and direction from the thermal image. The paper discusses different evaluation algorithms and compares their results. Three-point-estimators such as Gaussian estimator, peak centroid estimator, and parabolic estimator are used to improve the resolution of the direction measurement. The result of velocity measurement is also presented.