Heat Transfer Enhancement in Oblique Finned Channel

Abstract

In the modernistic day, cooling is one of the predominant challenges of electronic and automobile industry. The demand for faster and smaller devices increases the thermal load, and at the same time, conventional cooling techniques that use extended surfaces (fins, microchannel, heat sink, heat pipe, etc.) reached their limits. Recently, oblique fin heat sink has been found as an alternative to conventional heat sink because of their improved heat transfer performance and a marginal increase in pressure drop. The reason behind this improved heat transfer is the breakage of the continuous fin into oblique fin which keeps the flow in developing condition. Also, the secondary flow through oblique channel diverts a small fraction of flow and enhances mixing. The present paper tries to capitalize the advantage of the oblique fin with the benefits of nanofluid by carrying out a detailed numerical simulation. Alumina–water nanofluid has been used for numerical analysis using single-phase and discrete phase modeling approaches through oblique fin microchannel. Conjugate heat transfer between the oblique fin heat sink and nanofluid is computed numerically. Approximately, 115 and 145% heat transfer enhancement has been observed in oblique channel compared to rectangular microchannel in single-phase modeling and discrete phase modeling, respectively.