Effect of irreversibility and energy harvesting on entropy generation within a microscale heat sink

Abstract

In present work, the entropy generation minimization technique (EGM) is applied to study the performance of a microchannel heat sink combined with a new proposed parameter called irreversibility index and energy harvesting concept. Three different cases have been investigated using geometry of a microchanel heat sink selected from experimental work in the literature. The constraints considered in this study, are fixed channel height and maximum pressure drop. It has been observed that with fixed channel height constraint, while the aspect ratio changes from 1 to 10, the optimum operating condition fall in the range of Reynolds number equal to 2000 and aspectratio of 2.25. Moreover, the extra constrain on maximum pressure drop imposes a limitation on applicable aspect ratio range. The maximum aspect ratio of the channel for stable flow field in this case cannot be higher than 5 imposed by criteria of laminar flow regime. The obtained optimum values are Reynolds number of 1850 and aspect ratio of 2. Using a combined new defined irreversibility index and Energy Harvesting Concept (EHC), it has been shown that the optimum design values for industrial applications are not necessary ones obtained from EGM method and may shift to a new operating point based on the method considered for energy harvesting.