Hydrodynamic and thermal performance of in-line strip-fin manifold microchannel heat sink

Abstract

In this work, an in-line strip-fin manifold microchannel heat sink is proposed to improve the hydrodynamic and thermal performance of the conventional manifold microchannel. The hydrodynamic and thermal performance of varying strip-fin arrangements with approximately the same heat transfer area are numerically investigated. The results show that the in-line strip-fin manifold microchannel has lower pressure drop and better thermal performance than that of the conventional manifold microchannel at the same inlet mass flux. For varying strip-fin arrangements studied in this work, the pressure drop decreases by 15% to 25.5% at the inlet mass fluxes between 600kg/(m2s) and 1800kg/(m2s), compared with the conventional manifold microchannel. The effective overall thermal resistance of the in-line strip-fin manifold microchannel heat sink reaches the minimum value at one specific strip-fin arrangement, which is characterized by the optimal longitudinal number of strip-fins NL,opt. A minimum effective overall thermal resistance of 5.7×10−6m2K/W at an inlet mass flux of 1800kg/(m2s) is achieved. The average temperature of the optimal strip-fin arrangement is about 6.8K lower than that of the conventional manifold microchannel, when the heat flux is 300W/cm2. Heat transfer correlation considering microchannel geometrical parameters is proposed, which can be used to predict the thermal performance of the in-line strip-fin manifold microchannel. Based on the correlation, the effect of the in-line strip-fin array on the thermal performance is qualitatively revealed by thermal resistance analysis.