Flow Boiling in a Microchannel Heat Sink

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.

2006 ◽  
Vol 129 (10) ◽  
pp. 1321-1332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dong Liu ◽  
Suresh V. Garimella

Flow boiling heat transfer to water in microchannels is experimentally investigated. The dimensions of the microchannels considered are 275×636 and 406×1063μm2. The experiments are conducted at inlet water temperatures in the range of 67–95°C and mass fluxes of 221–1283kg∕m2s. The maximum heat flux investigated in the tests is 129W∕cm2 and the maximum exit quality is 0.2. Convective boiling heat transfer coefficients are measured and compared to predictions from existing correlations for larger channels. While an existing correlation was found to provide satisfactory prediction of the heat transfer coefficient in subcooled boiling in microchannels, saturated boiling was not well predicted by the correlations for macrochannels. A new superposition model is developed to correlate the heat transfer data in the saturated boiling regime in microchannel flows. In this model, specific features of flow boiling in microchannels are incorporated while deriving analytical solutions for the convection enhancement factor and nucleate boiling suppression factor. Good agreement with the experimental measurements indicates that this model is suitable for use in analyzing boiling heat transfer in microchannel flows.


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):  
Cheol Huh ◽  
Moo Hwan Kim

With a single microchannel and a series of microheaters made with MEMS technique, two-phase pressure drop and local flow boiling heat transfer were investigated using deionized water in a single horizontal rectangular microchannel. The test microchannel has a hydraulic diameter of 100 μm and length of 40 mm. A real time observation of the flow patterns with simultaneous measurement are made possible. Tests are performed for mass fluxes of 90, 169, and 267 kg/m2s and heat fluxes of from 100 to 600 kW/m2. The experimental local flow boiling heat transfer coefficients and two-phase frictional pressure gradient are evaluated and the effects of heat flux, mass flux, and vapor qualities on flow boiling are studied. Both the evaluated experimental data are compared with existing correlations. The experimental heat transfer coefficients are nearly independent on mass flux and the vapor quality. Most of all correlations do not provide reliable heat transfer coefficients predictions with vapor quality and prediction accuracy. As for two-phase pressure drop, the measured pressure drop increases with the mass flux and heat flux. Most of all existing correlations of two-phase frictional pressure gradient do not predict the experimental data except some limited conditions.


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.


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