Two-Phase Flow in Microchannels

Author(s):  
G. Hetsroni ◽  
A. Mosyak ◽  
Z. Segal

Abstract Experimental investigation of a heat sink for electronics cooling is performed. The objective is to keep the operating temperature at a relatively low level of about 323–333K, while reducing the undesired temperature variation in both the streamwise and transverse directions. The experimental study is based on systematic temperature, flow and pressure measurements, infrared radiometry and high-speed digital video imaging. The heat sink has parallel triangular microchannels with a base of 250μm. According to the objectives of the present study, Vertrel XF is chosen as the working fluid. Experiments on flow boiling of Vertrel XF in the microchannel heat sink are performed to study the effect of mass velocity and vapor quality on the heat transfer, as well as to compare the two-phase results to a single-phase water flow.

Author(s):  
Ahmed Elkholy ◽  
Roger Kempers

Abstract The trend in miniaturization of power electronic components requires the development of new robust and passive cooling methods to meet increased heat flux demands. Conventional heat sinks encounter inherent shortcomings due to heat spreading resistance of the heat sink baseplate particularly in natural convection heat sinks used to cool small localized heat sources. Heat pipes embedded within the base of heat sinks can be used to improve spreading performance but are limited by the ability to conduct heat into and out of the heat pipes. In the current study, a small, naturally aspirated two-phase thermosyphon heat sink was developed and characterized experimentally. The proposed architecture integrates all thermosyphon components into one compact device, where the evaporator, riser and the downcomer are incorporated at the heat sink base. The downcomer also serves as the condenser within the base of a vertical finned natural convection heat sink. The side-heated evaporator consists of an array mini-channels configuration which can operate in either pool boiling or flow boiling configuration, which allows the thermosyphon heat sink to operate in either reflux mode or looped mode, respectively. Experiments were carried out using HFE 7000 as the working fluid. The effect of the of input power on the thermal performance is examined for both modes for powers ranging from 10 to 80 W. Results demonstrate that this approach significantly reduces the spreading resistance resulting in a net improvement which can be traded-off for a decrease the overall size or weight of the heat sink.


Author(s):  
Fanghao Yang ◽  
Xiaochuan Li ◽  
Wenming Li ◽  
Chen Li

Two-phase microchannel heat sink is promising in cooling high power electronics with dielectric fluids. Compared to water, dielectric fluids can assure system safety in case of working fluid leakage. However, two-phase heat transfer of these hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants is restricted by their relatively low thermal conductivities and low latent heats. Numerous nanoscale/submicron structures have been developed to enhance the single and two-phase heat transfer in microchannels; but these techniques usually require nanoparticle seeds in multi-step wet processes or nanolithography to integrate these nanostructures. Therefore, most of these techniques were time-consuming and costly. In this study, we present a plasma etching method using a modified Bosch process to create silicon tips with nanoscale scallops in microchannels. This is a rapid and cost-effective method to integrate large density of nucleation sites without involving nanolithography method or using nanoparticle seeds. Then, these silicon tip arrays were aligned with side walls of microchannels. As a result, flow boiling heat transfer of a dielectric refrigerant, HFE-7000, is substantially enhanced in a microchannel heat sink (five parallel channels: 10 mm L × 220 μm W × 250 μm H). Compared to plain-wall microchannels, the average junction temperature can be reduced up to 10 °C at a heat flux of 55 W/cm2 and the equivalent thermal resistance of microchannel heat sink is reduced up to 31% at a mass flux of 1018 kg/m2·s.


Author(s):  
Ayman Megahed ◽  
Ibrahim Hassan ◽  
Tariq Ahmad

The present study focuses on the experimental investigation of boiling heat transfer characteristics and pressure drop in a silicon microchannel heat sink. The microchannel heat sink consists of a rectangular silicon chip in which 45 rectangular microchannels were chemically etched with a depth of 295 μm, width of 254 μm, and a length of 16 mm. Un-encapsulated Thermochromic liquid Crystals (TLC) are used in the present work to enable nonintrusive and high spatial resolution temperature measurements. This measuring technique is used to provide accurate full and local surface-temperature and heat transfer coefficient measurements. Experiments are carried out for mass velocities ranging between 290 to 457 kg/m2.s and heat fluxes from 6.04 to 13.06 W/cm2 using FC-72 as the working fluid. Experimental results show that the pressure drop increases as the exit quality and the flow rate increase. High values of heat transfer coefficient can be obtained at low exit quality (xe < 0.2). However, the heat transfer coefficient decreases sharply and remains almost constant as the quality increases for an exit quality higher than 0.2.


Author(s):  
Zhichuan Sun ◽  
Yang Luo ◽  
Junye Li ◽  
Wei Li ◽  
Jingzhi Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract The manifold microchannel heat sink receives an increasing number of attention lately due to its high heat flux dissipation. Numerical investigation of boiling phenomena in manifold microchannel (MMC) heat sinks remains a challenge due to the complexity of fluid route and the limitation of numerical accuracy. In this study, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach including subcooled two-phase flow boiling process and conjugate heat transfer effect is performed using a MMC unit cell model. Different from steady-state single phase prediction in MMC heat sink, this type of modeling allows for the transient simulation for two-phase interface evolution during the boiling process. A validation case is conducted to validate the heat transfer phenomenon among three phases. Besides, this model is used for the assessment of the manifold dimensions in terms of inlet and outlet widths at the mass flux of 1300 kg/m2·s. With different ratios of inlet-to-outlet area, the thermal resistances remain nearly stable.


Author(s):  
Ayman Megahed

This paper investigates experimentally flow boiling characteristics in a cross-linked microchannel heat sink at low mass fluxes and high heat fluxes. The heat sink consists of 45 straight microchannels with a hydraulic diameter of 248 μm and heated length of 16 mm. Three cross-links, of width 500 μm, are introduced in the present microchannel heat sink to achieve better temperature uniformity and to avoid flow maldistribution. Flow visualization, flow instability, and two-phase pressure drop measurements are conducted using the dielectric coolant FC-72 for the range of heat flux from 20.1 to 104.2 kW/m2, mass flux from 109 to 290 kg/m2.s, and exit quality from 0.02 to 0.65. Flow visualization studies indicate that the observed flow regime is primarily slug. Instability results show that the periods and amplitudes of inlet pressure and outlet saturation temperature oscillations decrease with increasing mass flux. The two-phase pressure drop strongly increases with the exit quality and the two-phase frictional pressure drop increases by a factor of 1.6–2, at xe, o < 0.3, as compared with that in the straight microchannel heat sink.


Author(s):  
Dae W. Kim ◽  
Emil Rahim ◽  
Avram Bar-Cohen ◽  
Bongtae Han

The thermofluid characteristics of a chip-scale microgap cooler, including single-phase flow of water and FC-72 and flow boiling of FC-72, are explored. Heat transfer and pressure drop results for single phase water are used to validate a detailed numerical model and, together with the convective FC-72 data, establish a baseline for microgap cooler performance. Experimental results for single phase water and FC-72 flowing in 120 μm, 260 μm and 600 μm microgap coolers, 31mm wide by 34mm long, at velocities of 0.1 – 2 m/s are reported. “Pseudo-boiling” driven by dissolved gas and flow boiling of FC-72 are found to provide significant enhancement in heat transfer relative to theoretical single phase values.


Author(s):  
Cristiano Bigonha Tibiriçá ◽  
Jaqueline Diniz da Silva ◽  
Gherhardt Ribatski

This paper presents new experimental flow boiling pressure drop results in a microscale tube. The experimental data were obtained under diabatic conditions in a horizontal smooth tube with an internal diameter of 2.32 mm. Experiments were performed with R134a as working fluid, mass velocities ranging from 100 kg/m2 s to 600 kg/m2 s, heat flux ranging from 10 kW/m2 to 55 kW/m2, saturation temperatures of 31°C, and exit vapor qualities from 0.20 to 0.99. Flow pattern characterization was also performed from images obtained by high-speed filming. Pressure drop gradients up to 48 kPa/m were measured. These data were carefully analyzed and compared against 13 two-phase frictional pressure drop prediction methods, including both macro- and microscale methods. Comparisons against these methods based on the data segregated according to flow patterns were also performed. Overall, the method by Cioncolini et al. (2009, “Unified Macro-to-Microscale Method to Predict Two-Phase Frictional Pressure Drops of Annular Flows,” Int. J. Multiphase Flow, 35, pp. 1138–1148) provided quite accurate predictions of the present database.


Author(s):  
Dong Liu ◽  
Suresh V. Garimella

Flow boiling heat transfer in a microchannel heat sink is experimentally investigated. The microchannels considered are 275 μm wide and 636 μm deep, and the experiments are conducted at inlet water temperatures in the range of 66 to 95°C and mass fluxes of 341 to 936 kg/m2s. Convective boiling heat transfer coefficients are measured and compared to predictions from correlations proposed for larger channels. While an existing correlation was found to provide satisfactory prediction of the heat transfer coefficient in subcooled boiling in the microchannels, saturated boiling was not well predicted by the correlations for macrochannels. A new heat transfer model is developed to correlate the data in the saturated boiling regime. Good agreement with the experimental measurements indicates that this correlation is suitable for use in the design of two-phase microchannel heat sinks.


1987 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. W. Eckels ◽  
J. H. Parker ◽  
A. Patterson

Experimental analyses of the effects of secondary flows on heat transfer in high tip speed rotating apparatus are not readily available. This paper provides data on the heat transfer within two different test modules which were rotated at high speed with the heat transfer surfaces perpendicular and parallel to the Coriolis acceleration. One module contained a heated wall and another a parallel plate free convection experiment. Uniform heat fluxes were maintained. Rayleigh numbers in excess of 1015 were achieved with liquid helium as the transfer medium. Some of the findings are that secondary flows can reduce heat transfer by as much as 60 percent in single-phase heat transfer, the transitions to fully turbulent flow are in agreement with existing prediction methods, the critical heat flux in two-phase flow boiling is significantly increased, forced convection correlations underpredict single-phase thermosyphon performance, and the usual nondimensional parameters of free convection establish similitude between various fluids and speeds. These results suggest that techniques used to enhance heat transfer in the rotating frame should be verified by tests in the rotating frame.


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