Flow Characteristic and Heat Transfer for Non-Newtonian Nanofluid in Rectangular Microchannels with Teardrop Dimples/Protrusions

Abstract

Abstract Porous cavity technology is one of the effective ways to improve local flow structures and thus the overall heat transfer of heat exchanging devices. In the present investigation, the flow characteristics and heat transfer in a microchannel heat sink with teardrop dimples/protrusions are studied with a numerical method. The working substances are Al2O3-water nanofluids, which are defined by power-law shear-thinning model. The relative depth and positive eccentricity of dimples/protrusions arranged in the microchannels are 0.2 and 0.3 respectively. The inlet velocity varies in the range of 1.41 m⋅s−1 to 8.69 m⋅s−1 and the volume fraction ranges from 0.5% to 3.5%. The effects of the flow and heat transfer characteristics are investigated by analyzing the limiting streamlines structures and temperature distributions. The overall thermal performance is evaluated by parameters of Fanning friction factor, Nusselt number and thermal performance. It is shown that the combination of teardrop dimple/protrusion structure and Al2O3-water nanofluids could effectively strengthen heat transfer with low pressure loss. Moreover, in order to obtain the best overall thermal performance, working substances with volume faction of 3.5% is preferred for the proposed microchannel structure.