A Comparative Numerical Study on Two-Phase Boiling Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer in the Microchannel Heat Sink With Different Manifold Arrangements

Abstract

Abstract The manifold microchannel (MMC) heat sink system has been widely used in high-heat-flux chip thermal management due to its high surface-to-volume ratio. Two-phase, three-dimensional numerical methods for subcooled flow boiling have been developed using a self-programming solver based on OpenFOAM. Four different types of manifold arrangements (Z-type, C-type, H-type and U-type) have been investigated at a fixed operational condition. The numerical results evaluate the effects of flow maldistribution caused by different manifold configurations. Before simulating the two-phase boiling flow in MIMC metamodels, single-phase liquid flow fields are performed at first to compare the flow maldistribution in microchannels. It can be concluded from the flow patterns that H-type and U-type manifolds provide a more even and a lower microchannel void fraction, which is conducive to improving the temperature uniformity and decreasing the effective thermal resistance. The simulation results also show that the wall temperature difference of H-type (0.471 K) is only about 10% of the Z-type (4.683 K). In addition, the U-type manifold configuration show the lowest average pressure drop at the inlet and outlet of the MIMC metamodel domain. However, H-type manifold also shows an impressive 59.9% decrease in pressure loss. Results indicate that both the H-type and the U-type manifolds for flow boiling in microchannels are recommended due to their better heat transfer performance and lower pressure drop when compared with Z-type and C-type.