Experimental study on cooling performance of minichannel heat sink using water-based MEPCM particles

Abstract

Experimental study was performed to investigate the cooling performance of a minichannel heat sink (Mini-CHS) with microencapsulated phase change material (MEPCM) particles/water as the coolants. Emphasis was focused on the evaluations of the hydraulic and thermal performance of water-based MEPCM particles in a Mini-CHS from the results of friction factor, average Nusselt number, heat transfer efficacy, temperature control effectiveness, and figure of merit with the Reynolds number ranging from 133 to 1515. The measured results reveal that the thermal performance can be enhanced by addition of MEPCM particles in water with low values of latent-sensible heat ratio (ωpcm/Stebf⁎) and using a low flow rate of coolant as compared to those of the pure water. For instance, an increment of 52% heat transfer effectiveness can be achieved for Rebf=133 and ωpcm/Stebf⁎=0.0472. It is also found that the case with lower flow rate and latent-sensible heat ratio has a better improvement of thermal resistance compared with that for the pure water. However, results also indicate that the enhancement effect may be reduced by increasing the values of latent-sensible heat ratio and the thermal performance of the MEPCM particles with higher latent-sensible heat ratio is not necessarily better than that of pure water.