Performance analysis of an interconnected Mini-channel heat sink with wavy wall

Abstract

Due to recent breakthroughs in mini/micro-scale electronics systems, the need for an innovative thermal management solution to dissipate large quantity of heat from a limited space has grown increasingly to assure device reliability. Liquid cooling micro/mini-channel has been found effective in this regard and already found application in microelectronics cooling; however it causes significant pressure drop penalty. To further improve its performance, different researchers have taken different approaches by modifying geometry, surface morphology, altering thermal properties of the coolant, using active or passive heat transfer augmentation techniques, etc. In this study, a novel heat sink design has been proposed for mini-channel heat sink with sinusoidal wavy surface walls and interconnections between channels. The thermal performance of the proposed heat sink has been numerically investigated with commercially available software FLUENT and the results has been compared with conventional minichannel heat sink. Effect of different parameters of the proposed heat sink, i.e., wavelengths, wave amplitudes, and phase shifts of the sinusoidal wavy MCHS have been also investigated in this study. Three different wavelengths, three different amplitudes, and two different phase shifts are used in this study and Reynold number (Re) of the channel is varied from 300 to 800. The Nusselt number (Nu) of IC w-MCHS increases as the wave amplitude ratio (α) and Re increases whereas it increases with the decrement of the wavelength ratio (β). Nu of the IC w-MCHS also depends on phase shift (θp¬¬). At θp¬¬ = π, the chaotic advection and flow reversal increase in the IC w-MCHS compared to θp¬¬ = 0, resulting in higher Nu and higher pressure drop. Maximum Nu of the IC w-MCHS is found to be 115% higher at Re 550, θp¬¬ = π, and α = 0.3 compared to s-MCHS and it is found 77% higher at Re 550, θp¬¬ = 0, and α = 0.3. As the IC w-MCHS enhances the mixing of the coolant, the maximum temperature is also found to decrease compared to the s-MCHS. Maximum temperature of the heat sink has been found to decrease up to 24% at Re 800, θp¬¬ = π, α = 0.3, and β = 0.08 and up to 15% for θp¬¬ = 0 . Pressure drop in IC w-MCHS is also found to be lower than the w-MCHS without interconnectors (w-MCHS).