Numerical Study of Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer in Compound Microchannel

Abstract

A three-dimensional numerical study has been carried out to investigate the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics in a compound microchannel (CMC) under conjugate heat transfer condition. A compound microchannel is one in which the channel cross-section is a combination of two shapes. In this work, the thermo-hydrodynamic performance of the compound microchannel with different cross-sections are analyzed and compared with the simple microchannel (SMC). The average Nusselt number (Nuavg), pressure drop (∆p), thermal resistance (RTh), and performance factor (PF) for fifteen (15) different geometric cross-sections are evaluated for flow Reynolds number, Re = 100 and applied heat flux on bottom surface of the substrate, q" = 10 W/cm2. The results reveal that the compound microchannel having semicircular base (which is formed by combining square and semicircle) shows highest overall thermal performance with performance factor value of 1.34 among all the geometries considered in this study.