A comprehensive analysis of a rectangular microchannel heat sink furnished with a circular perforated cylindrical pinfin

Abstract

In this study, a simulation has been performed to investigate the effect of circular perforated pinfins on the performance of microchannel heat sink by varying the number of holes and their locations on the pinfins. A total of ten configurations are considered in this work including a plain microchannel (without pinfin) and a solid pinfin case. The study was conducted on a single-phase flow using deionized water as coolant and the Reynolds numbers range from 150 to 350 when a constant heat flux of 100W/cm2 has been applied at the heated base wall of a heat sink. The results obtained indicate that the location, as well as the number of perforations, affects the heat transfer capacity and pressure drop that occurs in the microchannel. However, the outcomes of the present analysis contradict the findings for thermal airflows when identical cases have been applied to the micro heatsink. According to the present analysis case 1 (perforation at the underside of the pinfin) has the maximum Nusselt number followed by case 2 (perforation at the mid of the pinfin) and case 3 (perforation at the topside of the pinfin) whereas the minimum pressure drop is achieved by case 8 (four equidistant perforations) among pinfin configurations. The highest performance factor is achieved by case 1 at a low Reynolds number while case 6 (perforation at the underside and topside) performs best at a higher Reynolds number.