Friction Losses and Heat Transfer in Laminar Microchannel Single-Phase Liquid Flow

Many studies addressed the validity of macroscale theories to describe momentum and heat transfer in single phase in microtubes, but the results are often inconsistent. It is suggested that the fluid flow and heat transfer in microchannels without phase change is substantially different from that in larger channels. However, these discrepancies may be attributed to experimental uncertainties mainly due to the use of conventional measurement apparatus that are too big to implement in the tested system. Other researchers explain the microfluidic behavior with the ratio of surface forces to body forces which evolve inversely to the hydraulic diameter. The present work considers the use of a dedicated experimental facility built to allow the use of optical diagnostic and flow visualization techniques in heated microtubes and addresses the potential microscale effects which may arise for single phase flow conditions. The experiments encompass measurements of the pressure drop and the longitudinal temperature distribution in the fully developed single phase liquid flow established in circular and square cross section of channels made of borosilicate glass with hydraulic diameters from 50μm up to 500μm. The flow conditions consider a range of Reynolds number from 10 up to around 2500 and the use of diverse fluids to account for the effects of liquid properties. Namely, three distinct fluids were used: distilled water, methoxy-nonafluorobutane and methanol. For heat transfer studies, the channels are heated with constant wall heat flux supplied by Joule effect by means of external wall rf-PERTE deposition of Indium Oxide thin film. The thin transparent film showed good chemical stability in the range of temperatures up to 70°C, therefore indicating that the thermal boundary condition approximates a constant wall heat flux condition. The mass flux is varied from 60 to 3300kg.m−2·s−1 and the heat flux was set between 4 and 6kW.m−2. Experimental uncertainties are estimated to be below 14% for the friction factor and below 24% for Nusselt number; the former is dominated by inaccuracies in the diameter, while the second is dominated by temperature measurements.