Numerical Investigation on Flow Pattern, Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop Characteristics of Flow Boiling with Discrete Heat Sources

Abstract

Heat dissipation and temperature uniformity are one of the key technologies for electronic equipment. With the rapid growth of computing demand and the wide application of multichip devices, heat sources are distributed discretely in space. Therefore, the flow boiling in the mini-channel with two discrete heat sources is investigated in this study. The effects of heat source distribution, inlet fluid temperature and channel diameter on flow pattern, heat transfer and pressure drop are discussed in detail. The results show that intermittent flow tends to form around discrete heat sources, especially near the heat source which is far from the channel inlet. Moreover, the distance between discrete heat sources shouldn’t be too close to avoid heat concentration, nor too far to make full use of latent heat. When the distance between two heat sources is 70 mm, the temperature distribution is appropriate, and the heat dissipation is the best in this study. For the discrete heat source far from the inlet, the heat transfer coefficient increases significantly when the inlet fluid temperature increases due to the preheating of another heat source.