Optimization of Flow and Heat Transfer for a New Double-Layered Microchannel Heat Sink

In this paper, we propose a new type of DL-MCHS to improve the substrate temperature uniformity of the microchannel heat sink, and conduct the optimization of the New DL-MCHS. The heat transfer and friction characteristics of the novel DL-MCHS are studied by numerical simulation. We compare the heat transfer performance the new DL-MCHS with the traditional TDL-MCHS (the DL-MCHS with truncated top channels λ = 0.38). The results prove the effectiveness of the improved design by FLUENT simulation. When the inlet velocity is kept constant and coolant is water, the heat transfer performance of the New DL-MCHS is higher than that of TDL-MCHS leading to an increase of the temperature uniformity. In order to achieving the best overall heat transfer performance, an optimization of New DL-MCHS is performed by GA (genetic algorithm).

Numerical Investigation of Condensation Heat Transfer Characteristics of R134A in Rectangular Minichannel

This study numerically investigated the condensation heat transfer and flow characteristics of refrigerants R134a in rectangular minichannels. Three-dimensional simulations were carried out at different mass flux values, vapor qualities and gravity conditions through using the VOF model, the turbulence model and the phase transition model. The effects of various parameters on the surface heat transfer coefficient and the friction pressure gradient is clarified. The condensation process is found to be enhanced due to the increase of vapor quality and mass flow, while the friction pressure gradient decreases with the decrease of vapor quality and mass flow. According to the data obtained from the simulation, the liquid film tends to accumulate along the corner of the cross section in retangular minichannel. And the thickness of liquid film increased with the decrease of mass flux and vapor quality.

Subcooled Flow Boiling on Micro-Porous Structured Copper Surface in a Vertical Mini-Gap Channel

An experimental investigation of subcooled flow boiling in a large width-to-height-ratio, one-sided heating rectangular mini-gap channel was conducted with deionized water as the working fluid. The super-hydrophobicity micro-porous structured copper surface was utilized in the experiments. High speed flow visualization was conducted to illustrate the effects of heat flux and mass rate on the heat transfer coefficient and flow pattern on the surfaces. The mass fluxes were in the range of 200–500 kg/m2s, the wall heat fluxes were spanned from 40–400 kW/m2. With increments of imposed heat flux, the slopes of boiling curves for superhydrophobic micro-porous copper surfaces increased rapidly, indicating the Onset of Nucleate Boiling. Heat transfer characteristics were discussed with variation of heat fluxes and mass fluxes, the trends of which were analyzed with the aid of high speed flow visualization.

Effects of Operating Conditions on the Heat Management of a Microscale Fuel Cell

Higher energy densities and the potential for nearly instantaneous recharging make microscale fuel cells very attractive as power sources for portable technology in comparison with standard battery technology. Heat management is very important to the microscale fuel cells because of the generation of waste heat. Waste heat generated in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells includes oxygen reduction reaction in the cathode catalyst, hydrogen oxidation reaction in the anode catalyst, and Ohmic heating in the membrane. A novel microscale fuel cell design is presented here that utilizes a half-membrane electrode assembly. An ANSYS Fluent model is presented to investigate the effects of operating conditions on the heat management of this microscale fuel cell. Five inlet fuel temperatures are 22°C, 40°C, 50°C, 60°C, and 70°C. Two fuel flow rate are 0.3 mL/min and 2 mL/min. The fuel cell is simulated under natural convection and forced convection. The simulations predict thermal profiles throughout this microscale fuel cell design. The exit temperature of fuel stream, oxygen stream and nitrogen stream are obtained to determine the rate of heat removal. Simulation results show that the fuel stream dominates heat removal at room temperature. As inlet fuel temperature increases, the majority of heat removal occurs via convection with the ambient air by the exposed current collector surfaces. The top and bottom current collector removes almost the same amount of heat. The model also shows that the heat transfer through the oxygen channel and nitrogen channel is minimal over the range of inlet fuel temperatures. Increasing fuel flow rate and ambient air flow both increase the heat removal by the exposed current collector surfaces. Ultimately, these simulations can be used to determine design points for best performance and durability in a single-channel microscale fuel cell.

Experimental Study on Oscillating Heat Pipe With Hydraulic Diameter Far Exceeding the Maximum Hydraulic Diameter

In order to understand the heat transfer performance, startup and fluid flow condition of oscillating heat pipe (OHP) with hydraulic diameter far exceeding the maximum hydraulic diameter (MHD), an experimental investigation on heat transfer performance and visualization was conducted. From the experimental performance, it is found that the OHP can still work well with ethanol as the working fluid when the tube diameter has exceeded the MHD of 91.6%. In addition, the detailed flow patterns of the OHP were recorded by a highspeed camera for vertical and horizontal orientation to understand its physical mechanism. In the vertical orientation, initially working fluid generates small bubbles, and then the small bubbles coalesce and grow to vapor plugs, the vapor plugs finally pushes the liquid slugs to oscillate in the tube. In the horizontal orientation, the working fluid surface fluctuates due to the vapors flow from the evaporator to the condenser and bubbles burst in the evaporator. When the peak of liquid wave reaches the upper surface of tube, a liquid slug has been formed, and then the steam flow pushes the liquid slugs to oscillate in the tube.

Study on Forced Convective Heat Transfer of FC-72 in Vertical Small Tubes

In this paper, the forced convective heat transfer of FC-72 was experimentally investigated for various of parameters like velocity, inlet temperature, tube size, and exponential period of heat generation rate. Circular tubes with different inner diameters (1, 1.8 and 2.8 mm) and heated lengths (30–50 mm) were used in this study. The experiment data suggest that the single-phase heat transfer coefficient increases with increasing flow velocity as well as decreasing tube diameter and ratio of heated length to inner diameter. The experiment data were nondimensionalized to study the effect of Reynolds number (Red) on forced convection heat transfer. The results indicate that the relation between Nusselt numbers (Nud) and Red for d = 2.8 mm show the same trend as the conventional correlations. However, the Nud for d = 1 and 1. 8 mm depend on Red in a different manner. The conventional heat transfer correlations are not adequate for prediction of forced convective heat transfer in mini channels. The heat transfer correlations for FC-72 in vertical small tubes with diameters of 1, 1.8 and 2.8 mm were developed separately based on the experiment data. The differences between experimental and predicted Nud are within ±15%.

A Numerical Study of Electrode Arrangements for Precise Microdrop Generation in an Electrowetting-Based Digital Microfluidic Platform

Owing to the wide applications in a large variety of multi-disciplinary areas, electrowetting-based digital microfluidics (DMF) has received considerable attention in the last decade. However, because of the complexity involved in the droplet generation process, the techniques and configurations for precise and controllable microdrop generation are still unclear. In this paper, a numerical study has been performed to investigate the impact of electrode arrangements on microdrop generation in an electrowetting-based DMF Platform proposed by a previously published experimental work. The governing equations for the microfluidic flow are solved by a finite volume formulation with a two-step projection method on a fixed numerical domain. The free surface of the microdrop is tracked by a coupled level-set and volume-of-fluid (CLSVOF) method, and the surface tension at the free surface is computed by the continuum surface force (CSF) scheme. A simplified viscous force scheme based on the ‘Hele-Shaw cell’ model is adopted to evaluate the viscous force exerted by the parallel plates. The generation process has been simulated with three different electrode arrangements, namely, ‘SL’, ‘SW’, and ‘SQ’. The effect of electrode arrangement on microdrop volume has been investigated. Besides, the influences of the initial microdrop location and volume on the generation process for the ‘SL’ design have been studied. The results can be used to advance microdrop generation techniques for various electrowetting-based DMF applications.

Numerical Investigation of Flow Boiling in a Manifold Microchannel Heat Sink With Conjugate Heat Transfer

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.

Evaluation of Existing Frictional Pressure Drop Correlations During Condensation of R410A in Four Horizontal Tubes

Results are presented here from an experimental investigation on tube side condensation characteristics that took place in four tested tubes — 1EHT-1, 1EHT-2, 4LB and a smooth tube. The equivalent outer diameter of the tubes was 9.52 mm and the inner diameter was 8.32 mm. Condensation tests were conducted using refrigerant R410A at a saturation temperature of 318K, over a mass flow range of 150–450 kgm−2s−1, with inlet and outlet vapor quality of 0.8 and 0.2, respectively. Pressure drop data of the four tested tubes were collected to evaluate five identified prediction correlations based on the separated flow model and the homogeneous flow model. For 1EHT-2 and the smooth tube, all the listed correlations manage to present predictions with the Mean Absolute Relative Deviation (MARD) less than 30%, while they underestimate the frictional pressure drop of the 4LB tube with MARD exceeding 40% averagely. Regarding the experimental data, it is found that the Muller-Steinhagen and Heck correlation presents the most accurate and stable prediction for the 4 tested tubes. The listed homogeneous flow correlations can provide acceptable predictions with MARD ranging from 25% to 40% under a few conditions, but their average predictive accuracies are inferior to that of the separated flow correlations. Consequently, the separated flow approach performs better than the homogeneous flow model in the prediction of frictional pressure drop for our experimental data.

Numerical Study on Flow and Heat and Mass Transfer in Pulsating Heat Pipe

Numerical simulation was performed to establishing a two-dimensional pulsating heat pipe model, to investigate the flow and heat transfer characteristics in the pulsating heat pipe by using the Mixture and Euler models, which were unsteady models of vapor-liquid two-phase, based on the control-volume numerical procedure utilizing the semi-implicit method. Through comparing and analyzing the volume fraction and velocity magnitude of gas phase to decide which model was more suitable for numerical simulation of the pulsating heat pipe in heat and mass transfer research. It was showed there had gas phase forming in stable circulation flow in the heating section, the adiabatic section using the Mixture and Euler models respectively, and they were all in a fluctuating state at 10s, besides, the pulsating heat pipe had been starting up at 1s and stabilizing at 5s, it was all found that small bubbles in the heat pipe coalescing into large bubbles and gradually forming into liquid plugs and gas columns from the contours of volume fraction of the gas phase; through comparing the contours of gas phase velocity, it could be seen that there had further stably oscillating flow and relatively stabler gas-liquid two-phase running speed in the pulsating heat pipe used the Mixture model, the result was consistent with the conclusion of the paper[11] extremely, from this it could conclude that the Mixture model could be better simulate the vaporization-condensation process in the pulsating heat pipe, which could provide an effective theoretical support for further understanding and studying the phase change heat and mass transfer mechanism of the pulsating heat pipe.