Numerical study on significance of wave amplitude, wavelength and aspect ratio on heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics in circular wavy MC heat sink design

Abstract

In this study, hydrothermal characteristics in a circular wavy microchannel (CWMC) design under laminar flow conditions with uniform heat flux is numerically studied. Parametric studies in an innovative CWMC design were carried out at various wave amplitudes, wavelengths and aspect ratios. Three dimensional numerical study was performed in the Reynolds number (Re) range from 100 to 300 with uniform heat flux (50 W/cm2) applied at bottom of the channel, treating copper as channel material and water as working fluid. The obtained results were compared to sinusoidal wavy microchannel (SWMC).The results showed that heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics were significantly influenced by wave amplitude, wavelength and aspect ratio. Velocity vectors and contours were presented to understand the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics. Stream-wise local Nusselt number, overall performance factor, span-wise velocity and temperature variation are also presented. It is concluded that CWMC with higher wave amplitude, smaller wave length and smaller aspect ratio gives higher heat transfer augmentation with corresponding pressure drop penalty.