Experimental Study of a Single Microchannel Flow Under Non-Uniform Heat Flux

Author(s):  
Ahmed Eltaweel ◽  
Abdulla Baobeid ◽  
Ibrahim Hassan

Non-uniform heat fluxes are commonly observed in thermo-electronic devices that require distinct thermal management strategies for effective heat dissipation and robust performance. The limited research available on non-uniform heat fluxes focus mostly on microchannel heat sinks while the fundamental component, i.e. a single microchannel, has received restricted attention. In this work, an experimental setup for the analysis of variable axial heat flux is used to study the heat transfer in a single microchannel with fully developed flow under the effect of different heat flux profiles. Initially a hot spot at different locations, with a uniform background heat flux, is studied at different Reynolds numbers while varying the maximum heat fluxes in order to compute the heat transfer in relation to its dependent variables. Measurements of temperature, pressure, and flow rates at a different locations and magnitudes of hot spot heat fluxes are presented, followed by a detailed analysis of heat transfer characteristics of a single microchannel under non-uniform heating. Results showed that upstream hotspots have lower tube temperatures compared to downstream ones with equal amounts of heat fluxes. This finding can be of importance in enhancing microchannel heat sinks effectiveness in reducing maximum wall temperatures for the same amount of heat released, by redistributing spatially fluxes in a descending profile.

Author(s):  
Ahmed Eltaweel ◽  
Ibrahim Hassan

Abstract Nonuniform heat fluxes are commonly observed in thermo-electronic devices that require distinct thermal management strategies for effective heat dissipation and robust performance. The limited research available on nonuniform heat fluxes focus mostly on microchannel heat sinks while the fundamental component, i.e., a single microchannel, has received restricted attention. In this work, an experimental setup for the analysis of variable axial heat flux is used to study the heat transfer in a single microchannel with fully developed flow under the effect of different heat flux profiles. Initially, a hot spot at different locations, with a uniform background heat flux, is studied at different Reynolds numbers, while varying the maximum heat fluxes in order to compute the heat transfer in relation to its dependent variables. Measurements of temperature, pressure, and flow rates at a different locations and magnitudes of hot spot heat fluxes are presented, followed by a detailed analysis of heat transfer characteristics of a single microchannel under nonuniform heating. Results showed that upstream hotspots have lower tube temperatures compared to downstream ones with equal amounts of heat fluxes. This finding can be of importance in enhancing microchannel heat sinks effectiveness in reducing maximum wall temperatures for the same amount of heat released, by redistributing spatially fluxes in a descending profile.


Author(s):  
Jensen Hoke ◽  
Todd Bandhauer ◽  
Jack Kotovsky ◽  
Julie Hamilton ◽  
Paul Fontejon

Liquid-vapor phase change heat transfer in microchannels offers a number of significant advantages for thermal management of high heat flux laser diodes, including reduced flow rates and near constant temperature heat rejection. Modern laser diode bars can produce waste heat loads >1 kW cm−2, and prior studies show that microchannel flow boiling heat transfer at these heat fluxes is possible in very compact heat exchanger geometries. This paper describes further performance improvements through area enhancement of microchannels using a pyramid etching scheme that increases heat transfer area by ∼40% over straight walled channels, which works to promote heat spreading and suppress dry-out phenomenon when exposed to high heat fluxes. The device is constructed from a reactive ion etched silicon wafer bonded to borosilicate to allow flow visualization. The silicon layer is etched to contain an inlet and outlet manifold and a plurality of 40μm wide, 200μm deep, 2mm long channels separated by 40μm wide fins. 15μm wide 150μm long restrictions are placed at the inlet of each channel to promote uniform flow rate in each channel as well as flow stability in each channel. In the area enhanced parts either a 3μm or 6μm sawtooth pattern was etched vertically into the walls, which were also scalloped along the flow path with the a 3μm periodicity. The experimental results showed that the 6μm area-enhanced device increased the average maximum heat flux at the heater to 1.26 kW cm2 using R134a, which compares favorably to a maximum of 0.95 kw cm2 dissipated by the plain walled test section. The 3μm area enhanced test sections, which dissipated a maximum of 1.02 kW cm2 showed only a modest increase in performance over the plain walled test sections. Both area enhancement schemes delayed the onset of critical heat flux to higher heat inputs.


1985 ◽  
Vol 107 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Duffy

The temperature field within a sphere is found when the sphere is heated by a directed heat flux and cooled by blackbody radiation. For small heat fluxes, the analytic solution is obtained by transform methods. For large heat fluxes, the solution is computed numerically.


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