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Article history: Enhanced microchannel heat sink with sectional oblique fin is used to modulate the flow in contrast to
Received 15 April 2014 continuous straight fin. The re-initialization of thermal boundary layer at the leading edge of each oblique
Received in revised form 28 August 2014 due to breakage of continuous fin into oblique sections and the secondary flow due to these oblique cuts
Accepted 10 October 2014
resulted in better heat transfer and a comparable pressure drop. Extensive experimental investigations
Available online 6 November 2014
are carried out with silicon test vehicle with hydraulic diameter of 100 lm and 200 lm and de-ionized
water as flowing fluid. A parametric study involving the oblique angle, fin pitch is also carried out. Appre-
Keywords:
ciable heat transfer augmentation is also achieved with maximum heat transfer performance enhance-
Enhanced microchannel
Oblique fins
ment at 47% when Re = 680. Comparable pressure drop to conventional microchannel is maintained up
Thermal management to Re = 500. Parametric study suggests that smaller oblique angle and smaller fin pitch are beneficial
Electronic cooling for heat transfer enhancement. The performance of the microchannel with 100 lm channel width and
Fin pitch 27° oblique angle is found to be optimum.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2014.10.018
0017-9310/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
326 Y.J. Lee et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 81 (2015) 325–336
Nomenclature
The first suggestion was to add smaller channels at a certain angle ior. Dimension is another important aspect of the oblique fin chan-
between two main liquid channels. Alternatively, secondary flow nel which can affect the flow and heat transfer. In a recent review
can also be generated by a venturi effect. Both methods can lead to article, it has been observed by Kandlikar et al. [16] that the heat
heat transfer enhancement phenomenon without or with slight transfer coefficients of these oblique finned copper microchannels
additional pumping power consumption. This technique can be were relatively low due to large hydraulic diameters and suggested
applied by various kinds of fins and plates arrangement. The study it will be interesting to see performance at smaller level. In addi-
of Tatsumi et al. [12] on parallel plate fin arrays with oblique notches tion, there are a few key design parameters that greatly influence
suggested that the presence of oblique notches resulted in heat the heat transfer and pressure drop performance in oblique finned
transfer enhancement through interrupting thermal boundary lay- microchannels. Therefore, a parametric study is essential to
ers and promoting the generation of spanwise flow (secondary explore the outcome of varying these parameters.
flow). The present work tries to address these challenges by experi-
The concept of oblique fins in microchannel heat sinks was pro- mentally investigating the oblique fin microchannels of 100 micron
posed by Lee et al. [13] By breaking the continuous fins into obli- and 200 micron nominal width. The local flow and heat transfer
que sections, significant local and global heat transfer enhanced behavior is observed and analyzed. A parametric study looking into
was achievable with little or negligible pressure drop penalty. the effect of oblique angles and fin pitch is carried out. At last, an
Fan et al. [14] introduced the concept of oblique fins into the optimum geometry is suggested based on the results.
design of cylindrical heat sinks and obtained a much larger average
Nusselt number compared with that of conventional straight fin
heat sink. Detailed numerical and experimental studies were sub- 2. Experimental setup
sequently performed by Lee et al. [15] to further look into the
hydrodynamics and thermal development along the oblique finned A schematic of the experimental flow loop is shown in Fig. 1.
microchannel heat sink, providing some insights to the fundamen- Deionized water from a reservoir tank is driven through the flow
tal mechanism of this technology. These all works focus on overall loop using a micro-annular gear pump. This pump forces the cool-
flow and heat transfer in oblique fin channel. Since the change in ant through a 15 lm filter and a flow meter before entering the
flow and heat transfer behavior in oblique fin can be attributed microchannel test section. A heat exchanger (connected to water
to local geometry change such as oblique fin and oblique channel, bath) is used to regulate the water temperature before coolant
it will be interesting to see the local flow and heat transfer behav- enters the test section. Pressure transmitters are attached to the
Y.J. Lee et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 81 (2015) 325–336 327
manifolds immediately before and after the test piece to measure ness for the current test vehicles. Each thermal test die has a heater
the pressure drop across the test section. The water temperatures (doped silicon well) at the bottom wall of the chip at 2 mm 2 mm
immediately before, Tf,in and after, Tf,out the microchannel heat sink and a series of thermal sensors (5 diodes connected in series), which
in the manifolds are also measured with two T-type thermocouples enable independent heater control and local temperature measure-
(copper-constantan). Heated water that exits the test section is ment, providing greater insight into local heat transfer behavior and
cooled by passing it through a liquid-to-air heat exchanger before the overall temperature mapping. The resistive heating of the sili-
it returns to the reservoir tank. con thermal test dies is accomplished by driving the current
After the test section is assembled and properly sealed, the gear through the doped silicon well, where the input power is controlled
pump is switched on and the desired flow rate through the flow by a DC power supply unit. Fig. 2(b), on the other hand, shows the
loop is controlled with the digital control on the gear pump. As test piece and the enlarged view of the 5 5 arrays of thermal test
the flow rate is stabilized, the power supply to the heaters is dies. A coordinate numbering scheme (X, Z) for thermal test dies
switched on, and steady state is usually reached in 30–45 min. identification is also indicated in the figure.
The power input to the heaters in the test piece is controlled by Temperatures on the thermal test chip are indicated as voltage
a DC power supply unit. The voltage across the heaters is measured drop across the thermal diode sensors. Prior to the experiment, the
directly while the high current through the heaters is calculated voltage-temperature response of these thermal diode sensors are
from Ohm0 s law based on the voltage measured across a shunt established through calibration. The calibration is performed in a
resistor that is connected in series with the heater. Input power convection oven from 30 °C to 90 °C, in steps of 10 °C. Temperatures
to the heaters is calculated as the product of measured voltage and voltage drop are then recorded when both temperatures of oven
and calculated current. Steady-state readings from the thermocou- and thermal sensors reach steady state, typically in an hour time.
ples, differential pressure transmitter and others are recorded by
data acquisition system and stored in a computer throughout the 2.2. Data reduction
duration of the experiment. Each steady state value was calculated
based on the average of 100 readings sampled at 0.1 Hz. Fig. 3 shows the representative image of oblique fin channel. In
the schematic, l is fin length, p is fin pitch, h is oblique angle, wch is
2.1. Test sections channel width, ww is fin width, wob is oblique channel width.
The sensible heat gained by the coolant is determined from an
Silicon-based microchannel heat sinks are created on flip chip energy balance:
packages for experimental investigation. Channels are cut on the q ¼ qcp Q ðT f ;out T f ;in Þ ð1Þ
backside of the silicon thermal test chips using wafer dicing saw
blades of different width. Measurement is performed with a 3-axis It is found that more than 95% of the heat input is transferred to the
measurement microscope (Mitutoyo MF-B1010C) with 200 mag- coolant across all the experimental runs, where the heat loss is
nification at 9 different points (3 3 grid) on the microchannel deemed minimum or negligible.
heat sink. The average surface roughness (Ra) measured at the bot- As for material properties, silicon heat sink are assumed to have
tom wall of the channel is 178 nm. constant thermal conductivity, ksi = 148 W/mK. The density, spe-
Fig. 2(a) displays the test section of microchannel heat sinks in cific heat capacity, thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity of
this experiment. It consists of a polycarbonate manifold that is water are evaluated at the mean fluid temperature (average of
mounted onto a flip chip package, where the microchannels are the fluid inlet and outlet temperatures) based on the formulas sta-
laid. Each thermal test die is 0.100 0.100 (2.54 mm 2.54 mm) in ted in [17].
size and when diced in 5 5 grid array, this results in an overall As the pressure transmitters are located at the manifolds, the
footprint of 0.500 0.500 (12.7 mm 12.7 mm) with 0.65 mm thick- pressure drop measurement represents the combined losses due
328 Y.J. Lee et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 81 (2015) 325–336
Fig. 2. (a) Microchannel test section, (b) test piece with 5 5 array of thermal test dies.
DPch ¼ DP ðDP c1 þ DP c2 þ DP e2 þ DP e1 Þ
where DPc1 and DPc2 are the contraction pressure losses from the
deep plenum to the shallow plenum, and from the shallow plenum
to the microchannel. These minor losses can be expressed as [19]:
1 K
c1
DPc1 ¼ qf u2p2;in u2p1;in þ q u2 ð3Þ
2 2 f p2;in
1 K c2
DPc2 ¼ qf u2in u2p2;in þ q u2 ð4Þ
2 2 f in
where p1 and p2 denote the deep plenum and shallow plenum,
respectively, and Kc1 and Kc2 are the loss coefficients for the abrupt
contractions. On the other hand, DPe2 and DPe1 express the pressure
losses from the microchannel to the shallow plenum and from the
shallow plenum to the deep plenum, which can be written as
follow:
1 K
e2
DPe2 ¼ qf u2p2;out u2out þ q u2 ð5Þ
2 2 f out
Fig. 3. Schematic of the oblique fin and its nomenclature. 1 K
e1
DPe1 ¼ qf u2p1;out u2p2;out þ q u2 ð6Þ
to the frictional loss in microchannels and minor losses due to 2 2 f p2;out
abrupt contraction and expansion at the inlet and outlet [18], where Ke1 and Ke2 represent the losses coefficients due to the abrupt
which can be written as follow: expansion. For the present heat sink test section geometry, the
value of Kc1, Kc2, Ke1 and Ke2 are close to unity [20].
DP ¼ DPc1 þ DPc2 þ DPch þ DPe2 þ DPe1 ð2Þ
In addition to the above data reduction, thermal spreading resis-
The pressure drop across microchannel can then be calculated as tance is calculated to better assess the channel wall temperature of
Y.J. Lee et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 81 (2015) 325–336 329
silicon-based microchannel heat sinks. Thermal spreading resistance measured across microchannel heat sinks are at 1.8–12.6%. The
occurs whenever heat leaves a heat source of finite dimensions and nominal uncertainty in each parameter is shown in Table 1.
enters into a larger region. The thermal test dies used in the
experiment has 64% (80% length 80% width) of its bottom 3. Results and discussion
surface area covered by heater. Thus, heat spreading takes place
when heat is transported from the bottom of the dies to the base of 3.1. Silicon-based microchannel heat sink with 100 lm nominal
the microchannel. A 3D thermal spreading resistance model proposed channel width
by Yovanovich et al. [21] is adopted to account for the effect of
thermal spreading. This model assumes a planar rectangular heat The experiments are conducted over the flow rates ranging
source situated on one end of a flux channel, where it is cooled on from 100 mL/min to 500 mL/min, which corresponds to Reynolds
the other end through an average heat transfer coefficient, h while numbers of 180–680. By employing silicon thermal test chip in
the flux channel is laterally adiabatic. these experiments, the local behavior (local temperature and local
The summation of the thermal spreading and 1D conduction heat transfer coefficient profiles) of the enhanced heat sink can be
resistances across the thermal test chip is then found as Rs,(x,z) investigated. In this case, the performance of the enhanced micro-
while the temperature at the base of microchannel can be deter- channel heat sink with 100 lm nominal width under the experi-
mined as the heat supplied by each individual heater, q⁄ and tem- mental conditions of 160 mL/min (Re = 252) total coolant flow
perature at the bottom surface of thermal test dies, Th are known. rate and total 273 W heater power of will be presented in detail.
Total resistance = Thermal spreading resistance + 1D conduc- The measured temperatures of the thermal test chips are plot-
tion resistance ted in Fig. 4 based on the spanwise and streamwise position on
the heat sink. The figure is plotted for different Z where Z is Dimen-
Rs;ðx;zÞ ¼ Rsp;ðx;zÞ þ R1D ð7Þ
sionless heat sink width. The wall temperature is lowest at Z0 = 0.5
q Rs;ðx;zÞ ¼ T h;ðx;zÞ T w ; ðx; zÞ ð8Þ followed Z0 = 0.3 and 0.7. The heat transfer is almost same in this
region and the plots overlap each other. Higher temperatures are
where Thhðx;zÞ is the measured temperature at bottom of thermal
observed beyond Z0 = 0.3 and 0.7. Wall temperature of heaters at
test dies and Thhðx;zÞ is calculated channel wall temperature.
Z0 = 0.9 is the highest followed by heaters at Z0 = 0.1. The difference
As the local temperatures of the silicon-based microchannel
is clearly due to the lateral heat conduction from discrete heat
heat sink can be measured by individual thermal diode sensor in
sources towards the peripheral of thermal test chips.
a 5 5 grid array across the heat sink, local heat transfer coeffi-
The enhanced microchannel shows significant reduction in total
cient of the heat sink section on top of each thermal test chip is
thermal resistance compared to the conventional microchannel.
then determined using the correlation:
The total thermal resistance comprises of conductive, spreading,
q convective and caloric thermal resistances. Generally, the conduc-
hðx;zÞ ¼ ð9Þ
Atot ðT wðx;zÞ T f ;x Þ tive thermal resistance remains constant while spreading, convec-
tive and caloric thermal resistances reduce with the increasing
where q⁄ is the local heat transfer rate evaluated as the average sen-
Reynolds number, resulting in lower total thermal resistance. The
sible heat gain by coolant per unit thermal test dies. A⁄tot on the
improved heat transfer performance of the enhanced microchannel
other hand, is the average convective heat transfer area per unit
is demonstrated in Fig. 5, where the total thermal resistance of the
thermal test dies.
enhanced microchannel heat sink is consistently lower than the
Total thermal resistance of the heat sink is defined as
conventional configuration in the range of Reynolds numbers stud-
T max T f ;in ied. At low Reynolds number 180, the difference in thermal resis-
Rtot ¼ ð10Þ tances of both the channels cannot be claimed. As Reynolds
q
number rises, the effectiveness of enhanced microchannel
where Tmax is the maximum measured temperature of the heat sink, increases and the percentage of reduction in total thermal resis-
Tf is the inlet coolant temperature and q is the heat supplied into the tance quickly increase. The maximum total thermal resistance
heat sink. reduction achieved at Reynolds number 690 is as much as 25%
The streamwise local heat transfer coefficient, hx is defined as (Rtot,EM = 0.089 °C/W versus Rtot,CM = 0.119 °C/W). In the context of
the average heat transfer coefficient of thermal test chips in the current experiment, the highest percentage of total thermal
spanwise direction at the identical streamwise distance from the
inlet.
Table 1
hðx;1Þ þ hðx;2Þ þ hðx;3Þ þ hðx;4Þ þ hðx;5Þ Uncertainties for various critical parameters for silicon-based microchannel heat
hx ¼ ð11Þ sinks.
5
Subsequently, the average heat transfer coefficient of the heat sink Variable Absolute uncertainties/fractional
uncertainties
is calculated as the average value from all the twenty-five thermal
test dies. Channel width, wc, fin width, ww and 2 lm
fin length, l
The corresponding Nusselt number is then calculated as
Channel height, H 5 lm
Nu ¼ hDkf
h
Oblique angle, h 0.15°
Standard error analysis adopting the principles by Taylor [22] is Volumetric flow rate, Q 1.9–9.8%
performed with the uncertainties in the reported Nusselt numbers Temperature, Tf, Tcu 0.3 °C
falling between 6.6% and 15.6%. The highest percentage of error Reynolds number, Re 3.2–10.3%
Wall temperature, Tw 0.9–1.2%
occurs at the maximum flow rate, mainly due to the lowest sensi-
Hydraulic diameter, Dh 1.4%
ble water temperature rise from the inlet to the outlet of micro- Fin efficiency, g 3.7–15.8%
channel. The main contributor of uncertainties in this experiment Total heat transfer area, Atot 3.4–13.7%
is identified as the measurement of water temperature (±0.3 °C). Heat transfer coefficient, h 6.4–15.6%
Nusselt number, Nu 6.6–15.6%
Sequential perturbation method [23] is used to address the uncer-
Pressure, DP 1.8–12.6%
tainty of spreading resistance, due to the complexity of the Friction factor, f 2.7–13.6%
equation. On the other hand, uncertainties for pressure drop
330 Y.J. Lee et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 81 (2015) 325–336
Fig. 6. Comparison of local heat transfer performance of microchannel heat sinks for (a) Re 250 (b) Re 680.
Table 2
Dimensional details of microchannel heat sinks with 100 lm channel width.
Characteristic Conventional microchannel #1 (Con-100) Enhanced microchannel #1 (27° – NP0 ) Enhanced microchannel #2 (45° – NP0 )
Material Silicon
Footprint, width length (mm2) 12.7 12.7
Number of fin row, n 61
Main channel width, wc (lm) 115 113 110
Fin width, ww (lm) 85 87 91
Channel depth, H (lm) 387 379 351
Aspect ratio, a 3.37 3.35 3.19
Oblique channel width, wob (lm) – 49 48
Fin pitch, p (lm) – 405 400
Fin length, l (lm) – 292 332
Oblique angel, h (°) – 26.3 45.0
– NP0 denotes nominal pitch (400 lm) for enhanced microchannel heat sink with 100 lm channel width.
Table 3
Dimensional details of microchannel heat sinks with 200 lm channel width.
– NP denotes nominal pitch (800 lm) for enhanced microchannel heat sink with 200 lm channel width.
– LP denotes large pitch (1500 lm) for enhanced microchannel heat sink with 200 lm channel width.
– SP denotes small pitch (400 lm) for enhanced microchannel heat sink with 200 lm channel width.
Table 4
Comparison of convective heat transfer areas for microchannel heat sinks.
Configuration Oblique angle (°) Fin pitch (lm) Oblique fin perimeter (lm) Fin area (mm2) Un-finned area (mm2) Total heat transfer area (mm2)
Con-100 – – – 609.5 90.6 700.1
27° – NP0 26.3 405 976.6 718.7 107.5 826.2
45° – NP0 45.0 400 919.8 635.6 98.1 733.7
Con-200 – – – 354.0 80.8 434.8
27° – NP 27.1 783 1956.9 409.1 102.8 511.9
45° – NP 45.0 800 1864.8 406.4 93.6 500.0
15° – LP 14.9 1502 3718.2 441.6 100.5 542.1
27° – LP 26.3 1536 3476.4 359.1 92.4 451.5
45° – SP 45.0 400 1059.3 464.5 107.8 572.3
channel width. Both Con-200 and 45° – NP result in comparable aver- angle can lead to better heat transfer performance with higher aver-
age Nusselt numbers and pressure drop for Reynolds number up to age Nusselt number. 27° – LP also stands out from the comparison
1000, while that of 27° – NP is consistently higher. This again with its comparable pressure drop with Con-200, within the range
indicates that smaller oblique angle is better for heat transfer of Reynolds number examined, even though the heat transfer
enhancement. The gradient for 45° – NP in the average Nusselt num- enhancement is not as high as 15° – LP.
ber increases beyond Re 1000, suggesting that this configuration can From the assessment employing multiple microchannel groups,
be more effective in heat transfer for higher Reynolds number. it is consistently demonstrated that a smaller oblique angle con-
The third microchannel group is three microchannel heat sinks tributes to higher heat transfer performance, with a generally
with 200 lm nominal channel width, with the conventional micro- higher pressure drop. Even though the smaller oblique angle
channel heat sink (Con-200) up against two enhanced microchannel results in lesser flow resistance in secondary oblique channel than
(1500 lm large fin pitch) with 15° and 27° oblique angle (15° – LP the larger oblique angle, the longer oblique length contribute to
and 27° – LP). Fig. 11(a) again demonstrates that smaller oblique higher pressure drop for smaller oblique angle fin. Similar to liquid
Y.J. Lee et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 81 (2015) 325–336 333
Fig. 9. Comparison of (a) average Nusselt number, (b) pressure drop for microchannel heat sinks with different oblique angles (100 lm nominal channel width and 400 lm
nominal fin pitch).
Fig. 10. Comparison of (a) average Nusselt number, (b) pressure drop for microchannel heat sinks with different oblique angles (200 lm nominal channel width and 800 lm
nominal fin pitch).
flow through a bend, loss coefficient increases for sharper bend as and 1500 lm fin pitch respectively (27° – NP and 27° – LP). The
area of flow separation becomes extensive [24]. Thus, a smaller second group of microchannel heat sinks for comparison comprises
oblique angle helps to translate the diffusive oblique channel into of conventional microchannel (Con-200) and two enhanced micro-
a smoother and smaller flow area expansion from the main chan- channel heat sink (both have 45° oblique angle), with 400 lm and
nel. This can help to reduce the boundary layer separation that 800 lm fin pitch (45° – SP and 45° – NP). The experimental heat
occurs in the oblique channel and increase the secondary flow gen- transfer and pressure drop findings of the first group is presented
eration. However, one should be aware that for a smaller oblique in Fig. 12. The average Nusselt number is the highest for 27° –
angle with similar fin pitch, oblique fins will become thinner and NP followed by 27° – LP while that of Con-200 is the lowest. It also
this might compromise the structural integrity. In fact, the author suggests that the maximum temperature is lower than conven-
has struggled to fabricate the enhanced microchannel heat sinks tional microchannel. On the other hand, the pressure drop for
with 15° oblique angle through mechanical wafer cutting. 27° – NP is the highest while both 27° – LP and Con-200 display
comparable pressure drop. This indicates that shorter fin pitch is
3.2.2. The effect of oblique fin pitch variation beneficial for the heat transfer but incurs some pressure drop
The impact of oblique fin pitch variation to the enhanced micro- penalty.
channel performance is evaluated in two groups of microchannel On the other hand, Fig. 13 displays the comparison of heat trans-
heat sinks, with 200 lm nominal channel width, by varying the fer and pressure drop between Con-200, 45° – SP and 45° – NP
oblique fin pitch while other parameters including oblique angle microchannel heat sinks. It is found that 45° – SP prevails with the
are fixed. The first group of microchannel heat sinks includes a highest heat transfer performance followed by 45° – NP and Con-
conventional microchannel (Con-200) and two enhanced micro- 200. Both 45° – SP and 45° – NP heat sinks demonstrate an incre-
channel heat sinks (both have 27° oblique angle) with 800 lm ment in the heat transfer enhancement as Reynolds number rises
334 Y.J. Lee et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 81 (2015) 325–336
Fig. 11. Comparison of (a) average Nusselt number, (b) pressure drop for microchannel heat sinks with different oblique angles (200 lm nominal channel width and 1500 lm
nominal fin pitch).
Fig. 12. Comparison of (a) average Nusselt number, (b) pressure drop for microchannel heat sinks (200 lm nominal channel width and 27° oblique angle) with different fin
pitches.
above 1000. In addition, the pressure drop for these two heat sinks is heat sinks under the constraint of pressure drop. Among all the
higher than Con-200. Based on the evaluation with two different heat sinks tested, the enhanced microchannel with 100 lm chan-
microchannel groups, it can be concluded that smaller fin pitch is nel width and 27° oblique channel (27° – NP0 ), achieves the lowest
beneficial for higher heat transfer performance with generally total thermal resistance at the lowest pressure drop. This observa-
higher pressure drop. The introduction of oblique fins and channels tion demonstrates the effectiveness of the enhanced microchannel
aims to promote thermal boundary layer re-development and sec- through the integration of smaller channel size (hydraulic diame-
ondary flow generation, which are the critical elements in augment- ter) that has large surface area-to-volume ratio with short sec-
ing heat transfer performance. With the smaller fin pitch, more tional oblique fins. For instance, the pressure drop that is
oblique fins and channels can be inserted in a heat sink and this required to achieve 0.119 °C/W employing conventional micro-
enables the higher occurrence of boundary layer re-development channel (Con-100) can be reduced by 55% (from 45 kPa to
and secondary flow generation. 25 kPa) by adopting the enhanced microchannel (27° – NP0 ).
A similar trend is observed for microchannel heat sinks with
3.2.3. Overall performance comparison 200 lm nominal channel width. 45° – SP and 15° – LP are the
Besides evaluating the heat transfer of microchannel heat sinks two microchannel configurations that record the lowest total ther-
to the Reynolds number, the total thermal resistance of the indi- mal resistance, in comparison to other microchannel heat sinks
vidual heat sink is always compared between each other under with 200 lm nominal channel width. This finding also points out
the constant pressure drop, and, also, pump power constraint, in the effectiveness of a smaller fin pitch and a smaller oblique angle
the selection process to determine the best performing heat sink in enhancing heat transfer performance. More importantly, these
that meets the operating constraints. Fig. 14 demonstrates the configurations perform better than conventional microchannel
comparison of total thermal resistances of various microchannel heat sink with 100 lm nominal channel width at the similar
Y.J. Lee et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 81 (2015) 325–336 335
Fig. 13. Comparison of (a) average Nusselt number, (b) pressure drop for microchannel heat sinks (200 lm nominal channel width and 45° oblique angle) with different
oblique fin pitches.
pressure drop. By incorporating sectional oblique fins, both chan- Conflicts of interest
nel width and fin width of a microchannel heat sink can be relaxed,
allowing a much simpler, and economical, fabrication process. None declared.
In summary, the heat transfer of microchannel heat sinks can be
ranked as follow under constant pressure drop or pump power
constraint: Acknowledgement
27° – NP0 > 45° – NP0 > Con-100, 45° – SP and 15° – LP > 27° –
NP > 27° – LP > 45° – NP > Con-200 The authors gratefully acknowledge the MOE Academic
Research Fund (AcRF) Tier 2 research project Singapore for their
financial support. The Project title is Investigations on Micro scale
Transport Phenomena in Novel Oblique Structures with Project No.
3.3. Conclusion MOE2011-T2-2-126 (WBS No: R265-000-423-112).
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