Numerical Study of Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer in the Enhanced Microchannel With Oblique Fins

Abstract

Sectional oblique fins are employed in contrast to continuous fins in order to modulate flow in microchannel heat sink. The breakage of continuous fin into oblique sections leads to the reinitialization of both hydrodynamic and thermal boundary layers at the leading edge of each oblique fin, effectively reducing the thickness of boundary layer. This regeneration of entrance effect causes the flow to be always in a developing state thus resulting in better heat transfer. In addition, the presence of smaller oblique channels diverts a small fraction of flow into the adjacent main channels. The secondary flows thus created improve fluid mixing which serves to further enhance the heat transfer. Detailed numerical study on the fluid flow and heat transfer of this passive heat transfer enhancement technique provides insight to the local hydrodynamics and thermal development along the oblique fin. The uniquely skewed hydrodynamic and thermal profiles are identified as the key to the highly augmented and uniform heat transfer performance across the heat sink. The associated pressure drop penalty is much smaller than the achieved heat transfer enhancement, rendering it as an effective heat transfer enhancement scheme for single phase microchannel heat sink.