The optimization of a nanofluid-cooled rectangular microchannel heat sink is
reported. Two nanofluids with volume fraction of 1 %, 3 %, 5 %, 7 % and 9 %
are employed to enhance the overall performance of the system. An
optimization scheme is applied consisting of a systematic thermal resistance
model as an analysis method and the elitist non-dominated sorting genetic
algorithm (NSGA-II). The optimized results showed that the increase in the
particles volume fraction results in a decrease in the total thermal
resistance and an increase in the pumping power. For volume fractions of 1
%, 3 %, 5 %, 7 % and 9 %, the thermal resistances were 0.072, 0.07151,
0.07075, 0.07024 and 0.070 [oK W-1] for the SiC-H2O while, they were 0.0705,
0.0697, 0.0694, 0.0692 and 0.069 [oK W-1] for the TiO2-H2O. The associated
pumping power were 0.633, 0.638, 0.704, 0.757 and 0.807 [W] for the SiC-H2O
while they were 0.645, 0.675, 0.724, 0.755 and 0.798 [W] for the TiO2-H2O.
In addition, for the same operating conditions, the nanofluid-cooled system
outperformed the water-cooled system in terms of the total thermal
resistance (0.069 and 0.11 for nanofluid-cooled and water-cooled systems,
respectively). Based on the results observed in this study, nanofluids
should be considered as the future coolant for electronic devices cooling
systems.