An analytical solution for thermally fully developed combined pressure – electroosmotically driven flow in microchannels

An analytical solution is presented to study the heat transfer characteristics of the combined pressure – electroosmotically driven flow in planar microchannels. The physical model includes the Joule heating effect to predict the convective heat transfer coefficient in two dimensional microchannels. The velocity field, which is a function of external electrical field, electroosmotic mobility, fluid viscosity and the pressure gradient, is obtained by solving the hydrodynamically fully-developed laminar Navier–Stokes equations considering the electrokinetic body force for low wall zeta potentials. Then, assuming a thermally fully-developed flow, the temperature distribution and the Nusselt number is obtained for a constant wall heat flux boundary condition. The fully-developed temperature profile and the Nusselt number depend on velocity field, channel height, solid/liquid interface properties and the imposed wall heat flux. A parametric study is presented to evaluate the significance of various parameters and in each case, the maximum heat transfer rate is obtained.     

微通道内液体流动和传热研究进展

随着尺度的微细化,微通道内液体的流动和传热出现了不同于常规尺度的现象。液体流动的Re、传热Nu和摩擦常数C等都出现了新的变化规律。许多在常规尺度下不重要的因素如黏性耗散、轴向热传导和表面浸润性等都开始变的突出。研究流体在微通道的流动和传热规律,具有重要的现实意义。对微通道内液体的流动和传热研究进行了总结,尤其是对微通道内液体的黏性耗散进行了详细的分析。     

Thermally dependent viscosity and non-Newtonian flow in a double-pipe helical heat exchanger

A double-pipe helical heat exchanger was numerically studied to determine the effects of thermally dependent viscosity and non-Newtonian flows on heat transfer and pressure drop for laminar flow. Thermally dependent viscosities were found to have very little effect on the Nusselt number correlations for Newtonian fluids; however significant effects on the pressure drop in the heat exchanger were predicted. Changing the flow rate in the annulus can significantly affect the pressure drop in the inner tube, since the average viscosity of the fluid in the inner tube would change due to the change in the average temperature.The effects of non-Newtonian power law fluids on the heat transfer and the pressure drop were determined for laminar flow in the inner tube and in the annulus. The Nusselt number was correlated with the Péclet number for heat transfer in the inner tube. For the annulus, the Nusselt number was found to correlate best with the Péclet number and the curvature ratio. Pressure drop data were compared by using ratios of the pressure drop of the non-Newtonian fluid to a Newtonian fluid at identical mass flow rates and consistency indices.     

Heat transfer enhancement by recirculating flow within liquid plugs in microchannels

Plug flow can significantly enhance heat transfer in microchannels as compared to single phase flow. Using an analytical model of flow field, heat transfer in plug flow is investigated. The constant-surface-temperature boundary condition is considered. Three stages of the heat transfer in plugs are identified: (i) development of thermal boundary layer; (ii) advection of heated/fresh fluid in the plug; and (iii) thermally fully developed flow. Due to the transport of heated fluid and fresh fluid within the plug by the recirculating flow, oscillations of the Nusselt number at high Peclet numbers are observed and explained. The effects of the Peclet number and the plug length on the heat transfer process are evaluated. The results show that short plugs are preferable to long plugs since short plugs result in high Nusselt numbers and high heat transfer indices.     

Numerical simulation of roughness effects on flow and heat transfer in microchannels at slip flow regime

A numerical simulation for studying fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics in microchannels at slip flow regime with consideration of slip and temperature jump is studied. The wall roughness is simulated in two cases with periodically distributed triangular microelements and random shaped micro peaks distributed on the wall surfaces. Various Knudsen numbers have used to investigate the effects of rarefaction. The numerical results have also checked with available theoretical and experimental relations and good agreements has achieved. It has been found that rarefaction has more significant effect on flow field in microchannels with higher relative roughness. The negative influence of roughness on fluid flow and heat transfer found to be the friction factor increment and Nusselt number reduction. In addition high influence of roughness distribution and shape has been shown by a comparison of Poiseuille and Nusselt numbers for tow different cases.     

Microchannel size effects on local flow boiling heat transfer to a dielectric fluid

Heat transfer with liquid–vapor phase change in microchannels can support very high heat fluxes for use in applications such as the thermal management of high-performance electronics. However, the effects of channel cross-sectional dimensions on the two-phase heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop have not been investigated extensively. In the present work, experiments are conducted to investigate the local flow boiling heat transfer of a dielectric fluid, Fluorinert FC-77, in microchannel heat sinks. Experiments are performed for mass fluxes ranging from 250 to 1600 kg/m² s. Seven different test pieces made from silicon and consisting of parallel microchannels with nominal widths ranging from 100 to 5850 μm, all with a nominal depth of 400 μm, are considered. An array of temperature sensors on the substrate allows for resolution of local temperatures and heat transfer coefficients. The results of this study show that for microchannels of width 400 μm and greater, the heat transfer coefficients corresponding to a fixed wall heat flux as well as the boiling curves are independent of channel size. Also, heat transfer coefficients and boiling curves are independent of mass flux in the nucleate boiling region for a fixed channel size, but are affected by mass flux as convective boiling dominates. A strong dependence of pressure drop on both channel size and mass flux is observed. The experimental results are compared to predictions from a number of existing correlations for both pool boiling and flow boiling heat transfer.     

An experimental study of flow friction and heat transfer in wavy microchannels with rectangular cross section

Experimental investigation has been conducted on the flow friction and heat transfer in sinusoidal microchannels with rectangular cross sections. The microchannels considered consist of ten identical wavy units with average width of about 205 μm, depth of 404 μm, wavelength of 2.5 mm and wavy amplitude of 0–259 μm. Each test piece is made of copper and contains 60–62 wavy microchannels in parallel. Deionized water is employed as the working fluid and the Reynolds numbers considered range from about 300 to 800. The experimental results, mainly the overall Nusselt number and friction factor, for wavy microchannels are compared with those of straight baseline channels with the same cross section and footprint length. It is found that the heat transfer performance of the present wavy microchannels is much better than that of straight baseline microchannels; at the same time the pressure drop penalty of the present wavy microchannels can be much smaller than the heat transfer enhancement. Conjugate simulation based on the classical continuum approach is also carried out for similar experimental conditions, the numerical results agree reasonably well with experimental data.     

Characterization of sodium flow over hexagonal fuel subassemblies

Steady flow of liquid sodium over a bundle of heat generating hexagonal subassemblies has been investigated. The cross flow pressure drop and heat transfer are characterized using the general purpose CFD code STAR-CD. Analysis has been carried out for both laminar and turbulent regimes of interest to liquid metal fast reactors. Turbulence has been modeled using low Reynolds number (Re) k-ε model. The estimated pressure drop and heat transfer coefficients are compared against that of a straight parallel plate channel. It is seen that in the low Reynolds number range, the pressure drop for the hexagonal path is nearly equal to that of the parallel plate channel for the same length. However, in the high Reynolds number range, the pressure drop of the hexagonal path is much higher than that in the parallel plate channel, the ratio being 2 at Re = 2000 while it is 3.6 at Re = 20,000. Two competing factors, viz., (i) jet impingement/flow development effect and (ii) flow separation effect are found to influence the average Nusselt number (Nu). In the laminar regime, the latter effect dominates leading to a decrease of the Nusselt number with an increase in the Reynolds number. However, in the turbulent regime, the former effect dominates leading to an increase in the Nusselt number with Reynolds number. The Nusselt number in the hexagonal path is about twice that of the parallel plate channel due to under development of velocity/temperature profiles and the recirculation associated with the hexagonal path due to the changes in flow direction. Detailed correlations for both the pressure drop and the average Nusselt number have been proposed.     

Numerical simulation of thermofluid characteristics of two-phase slug flow in microchannels

A fundamental study of heat transfer characteristics of two-phase slug flow in microchannels is carried out employing the Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) method. Despite of the fact that numerical simulations of two-phase flows in microchannels have been attempted by many investigators, most efforts seem to have failed in correctly capturing the flow physics, especially those pertaining to the slug flow regime characteristics. The presence of a thin liquid film in the order of 10 μm around the bubble is a contributing factor to the above difficulty. Typically, liquid films have a significant effect on the flow field and heat transfer characteristics. In the simulations reported in this paper, the film is successfully captured and a very high local convective heat transfer coefficient is observed in the film region. A strong coupling between the conductive heat transfer in the solid wall and the convective heat transfer in the flow field is observed and characterized. Results showed that unsteady heat transfer through the solid wall in the axial direction is comparable to that in the radial direction. Results also showed that a fully developed condition could be achieved fairly quickly compared to single-phase flows. The fully developed condition is defined based on the Peclet number (Pe) and a dimensionless length of the liquid slug. Local and time-averaged Nusselt numbers for slug flows are reported for the first time. It was found that significant improvements in the heat transfer coefficient could be achieved by short slugs where the Nusselt number was found to be 610% higher than in single-phase flows. The study revealed new findings related to slug flow heat transfer in microchannels with constant wall heat flux.     

Significant Nusselt number increase in microchannels with a segmented flow of two immiscible liquids: An experimental study

Increasingly smaller electronics requires improvement in performance of cooling systems to keep it operating reliably. We present herein a novel experimental study of convective heat transfer in serpentine microchannels with segmented liquid–liquid emulsions. It is demonstrated that this concept yields significant Nusselt number enhancement in microchannel heat sinks compared to that obtained using single phase liquid cooling. Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) is employed to measure temperature of the coolant with and without droplets, and micro-PIV is used to determine velocity field. For the segmented flow, up to four-fold increase of the Nusselt number was observed compared to pure water flow.     

Laminar nanofluid flow in microheat-sinks

In response to the ever increasing demand for smaller and lighter high-performance cooling devices, steady laminar liquid nanofluid flow in microchannels is simulated and analyzed. Considering two types of nanofluids, i.e., copper-oxide nanospheres at low volume concentrations in water or ethylene glycol, the conjugated heat transfer problem for microheat-sinks has been numerically solved. Employing new models for the effective thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity of nanofluids, the impact of nanoparticle concentrations in these two mixture flows on the microchannel pressure gradients, temperature profiles and Nusselt numbers are computed, in light of aspect ratio, viscous dissipation, and enhanced temperature effects. Based on these results, the following can be recommended for microheat-sink performance improvements: Use of large high-Prandtl number carrier fluids, nanoparticles at high volume concentrations of about 4% with elevated thermal conductivities and dielectric constants very close to that of the carrier fluid, microchannels with high aspect ratios, and treated channel walls to avoid nanoparticle accumulation.     

A Review of Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop Correlations for Laminar Flow in Curved Circular Ducts

Heat transfer and pressure drop correlations for fully developed laminar Newtonian fluid flow in curved and coiled circular tubes are reviewed. Curved geometry is one of the passive heat transfer enhancement methods that fits several heat transfer applications, such as power production, chemical and food industries, electronics, environment engineering, and so on. Centrifugal force generates a pair or two pairs of cross-sectional secondary flow (based on the Dean number), which are known as the Dean vortices, and improves the overall heat transfer performance with an amplified peripheral Nusselt number variation. The main purpose of this review paper is to provide researchers with a comprehensive list of correlations and concepts that they may need during their research. The paper begins with an introduction to the governing equations and important dimensionless numbers for the flow in curved tubes. The correlations for developing flow in curved and coiled circular tubes are also presented. The main contribution of this study is reviewing the numerical and experimental correlations to calculate friction factor and Nusselt number in curved circular tubes. Nusselt number correlations are categorized based on the thermal boundary condition, as well as on the method. A Dean number range of 1 to 20,000 for the pressure drop correlations and 1 to 7000 for the heat transfer correlations and a Prandtl number range of 0.1 to 7,000 are covered with the reviewed correlations.     

Experimental investigation of fluid flow and heat transfer in a single-phase liquid flow micro-heat exchanger

This work presents an experimental analysis of the hydrodynamic and thermal performance of micro-heat exchangers. Two micro-heat exchangers, characterized by microchannels of 100 × 100 and 200 × 200 μm square cross-sections, were designed for that purpose. The fluid used was deionized water and there was no phase change along the fluid circuit. The fluid pressure drop along the heat exchanger and the heat transfer were measured and corrections were made to isolate the contribution of the microchannels. The results were compared with the predictions of the classical viscous flow and heat transfer theory. The main conclusions show that the experimental results fit well with these theories. No effects of heat transfer enhancement or pressure drop increase were observed as a consequence of the small scale of the microchannels.     

Effects of inlet/outlet configurations on flow boiling instability in parallel microchannels

A simultaneous visualization and measurement study has been carried out to investigate effects of inlet/outlet configurations on flow boiling instabilities in parallel microchannels, having a length of 30 mm and a hydraulic diameter of 186 μm. Three types of inlet/outlet configurations were investigated. Fluid flow entering to and exiting from the microchannels with the Type-A connection was restricted because the inlet and outlet conduits were perpendicular to the microchannels. The fluid flow had no restriction in entering to and existing from the microchannels with the Type-B connection. In the Type-C connection, fluid flow was restricted in entering each microchannel but was not restricted in exiting from the microchannels. It is found that amplitudes of temperature and pressure oscillations in the Type-B connection are much smaller than those in the Type-A connection under the same heat flux and mass flux conditions. On the other hand, nearly steady flow boiling exists in the parallel microchannels with the Type-C connection under the experimental conditions. Therefore, this configuration is recommended for high-heat-flux microchannel applications. As predicted, the stability threshold is determined by the minimum in the pressure-drop-versus-flow-rate curve. The pressure drop and heat transfer coefficient versus vapor quality for flow boiling in microchannels with the Type-C connection are presented. It is found that experimental data of pressure drop are higher and heat transfer coefficients are lower for boiling flow at high vapor quality in microchannels than those predicted from correlation equations for boiling flow in macrochannels, due to local dryout.     

Experimental investigation of the influence of the cross flow in the nozzle region on the shell-side heat transfer in double-pipe heat exchangers

In shell-and-tube heat exchangers, the shell-side fluid flow enters and leaves through nozzles which are mounted on the shell wall. The cross-flow in the nozzle region has an impact on the shell-side pressure drop and heat transfer. The influence on the heat transfer is investigated by means of experiments with four double-pipe heat exchangers.The results show that the influence is greater, the shorter the heat exchangers are, and the smaller the ratio of the free cross sectional areas of the nozzle to that of the shell-side. A correlation suitable for predicting the heat transfer coefficient is presented in this paper. The correlation consists of the Nusselt number for the flow in the nozzle region and that for the flow in the annulus.     

Experimental and analytical study of the effect of contact angle on liquid convective heat transfer in microchannels

In this paper we examine the effect of contact angle (or surface wettability) on the convective heat transfer coefficient in microchannels. Slip flow, where the fluid velocity at the wall is non-zero, is most likely to occur in microchannels due to its dependence on shear rate or wall shear stress. We show analytically that for a constant pressure drop, the presence of slip increases the Nusselt number. In a microchannel heat exchanger we modified the surface wettability from a contact angle of 20°–120° using thin film coating technology. Apparent slip flow is implied from pressure and flow rate measurements with a departure from classical laminar friction coefficients above a critical shear rate of approximately 10,000 s⁻¹. The magnitude of this departure is dependant on the contact angle with higher contact angles surfaces exhibiting larger pressure drop decreases. Similarly, the non-dimensional heat flux is found to decrease relative to laminar non-slip theory, and this decrease is also a function of the contact angle. Depending on the contact angle and the wall shear rate, variations in the heat transfer rate exceeding 10% can be expected. Thus the contact angle is an important consideration in the design of micro, and even more so, nano heat exchangers.     

An experimental study of convective heat transfer in silicon microchannels with different surface conditions

An experimental investigation has been performed on the laminar convective heat transfer and pressure drop of water in 13 different trapezoidal silicon microchannels. It is found that the values of Nusselt number and apparent friction constant depend greatly on different geometric parameters. The laminar Nusselt number and apparent friction constant increase with the increase of surface roughness and surface hydrophilic property. These increases become more obvious at larger Reynolds numbers. The experimental results also show that the Nusselt number increases almost linearly with the Reynolds number at low Reynolds numbers (Re<100), but increases slowly at a Reynolds number greater than 100. Based on 168 experimental data points, dimensionless correlations for the Nusselt number and the apparent friction constant are obtained for the flow of water in trapezoidal microchannels having different geometric parameters, surface roughnesses and surface hydrophilic properties. Finally, an evaluation of heat flux per pumping power and per temperature difference is given for the microchannels used in this experiment.     

In-bend pressure drop and post-bend heat transfer for a bend with a partial blockage at its inlet

This paper describes a three-part numerical investigation of fluid flow and heat transfer in a never-previously-studied pipe bend situation. The investigation deals with downstream fluid-flow and heat transfer processes which are affected by upstream flow disturbances. The studied physical situation is a 90° pipe bend fitted with a wall-adjacent obstruction that partially blocks the inlet cross section. The first phase of the work consisted of validating numerical simulation results with experimental data. In the second phase, the impact of the inlet flow distribution on the pressure drop is determined. Heat transfer downstream of the bend exit comprises the third section of the paper. The heat transfer results are reported in terms of the circumferentially averaged Nusselt numbers which are displayed as a function of axial position for Reynolds numbers between 100 and 10,000. It was found that the disturbances caused by the blockage significantly enhance the Nusselt number values.     

Visualization and measurements of periodic boiling in silicon microchannels

A simultaneous visualization and measurement investigation has been carried out on flow boiling of water in parallel silicon microchannels of trapezoidal cross-section. Two sets of parallel microchannels, having hydraulic diameters of 158.8 and 82.8 μm, respectively, were used. The visualization study shows that once boiling heat transfer is established, two-phase flow and single-phase liquid flow appear alternatively with time in the microchannels. Large-amplitude/long-period fluctuations with time in wall temperatures, fluid temperatures, fluid pressures, and fluid mass flux, are measured for the first time during flow boiling in the microchannels. The fluctuation periods are found to be dependent on channel size, heat flux, and mass flux. The mechanism of the periodic boiling fluctuations in this experiment as well as their comparisons with other boiling fluctuations phenomena reported previously, are also discussed. The experimental results confirm that large-amplitude/long-period boiling fluctuations can be sustained when the fluctuations of pressure drop and mass flux have phase differences.With the aid of a microscope and high-speed video recording system, bubbly flow, slug flow, churn flow, and other peculiar flow patterns, are observed during two-phase flow periods in the microchannels.     

Thermal Performance Analysis of Slug Flow in Square Microchannels

Abstract

Thermal performance enhancement of microchannel heat sinks for electronics cooling is becoming more and more necessary. To this end, microchannels with noncircular cross-sections conveying immiscible droplets have been employed in this study and geometric manipulations are applied to enhance fluid mixing and consequently achieve a higher rate of heat removal. Three-dimensional numerical simulations are performed using volume of fluid method for channels of 100?µm hydraulic diameter. Constant wall temperature is chosen as the boundary condition for heating section of the channels. Effects of parameters such as adding curvature to the side walls and varying the entering velocity of the base liquid on heat transfer rate are studied. A performance coefficient is used to evaluate the relative impact of increase in both the Nusselt number and pressure drop as a result of adding curvature to the channel walls. Results of the study showed that slug flow in curved channels is capable of improving the thermal performance in comparison with single liquid flow in straight channels and in best case, can improve the performance up to 50%.