Comparison of cooling performance of nanofluid flows in mini/micro-channel stacked double-layer heat sink and single-layer micro-channel heat sink

Abstract

Mini/micro-channel heat sinks are the advanced cooling method to fulfill the cooling demand of electronic equipment integrated with high-power circuit packages. Many designs are provided to enhance the thermal performance of micro-channel. In the present experimental study, the mini/micro-channel stacked double-layer heat sink is designed and tested for the first time. The mini/micro-channel stacked double-layer heat sink is composed of a single-layer micro-channel heat sink stacked with a mini-channel heat sink. The pure water and alumina-water nanofluid are considered as the coolant. A comparison is conducted between the heat dissipation performance of mini/micro-channel stacked double-layer heat sink and single-layer micro-channel heat sink. The results showed that as compared with the case of single-layer micro-channel heat sink, the pressure drop can be reduced considerably by using the mini/micro-channel stacked double-layer heat sink. For the flow rate ratio less than 2.0, the average convection heat transfer coefficient of the mini/micro-channel stacked double-layer heat sink is higher than that of the single-layer micro-channel heat sink. Finally, the FOM ratios are greater than unity for all cases. This indicates that the use of mini/micro-channel stacked double-layer heat sinks has more advantages in engineering applications than the single-layer micro-channel heat sinks.