ANALYSIS OF SINGLE PHASE TURBULENT FLOW WITH FORCED CONVECTION HEAT TRANSFER INSIDE A CIRCULAR MICROCHANNEL

Abstract

For many years, several experiments have been conducted to analyze the fluid flow and heat transfer parameters in microchannel heat sinks which are designed for applications in electronic cooling. These microchannels provide high surface area per unit volume and large potential for heat transfer. The present work addresses and investigates the study of a single-phase water cooled circular microchannel heat sink for electronic packages with forced convection of water by the help of a commercial CFD software FLUENT. The geometry of the problem and meshing has been done in ANSYS Workbench. The models of the problem have been solved by Fluent solver. In this report, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for fully developed turbulent flow (k-𝜖 model) has been implemented with the help of FLUENT 14.5 software. In the present work Nusselt number has been calculated for the given flow conditions and the result has been compared with the results of T.M.ADAMS’ experimental work. The hydrodynamic and thermal behaviour of the system have been studied in terms of velocity, pressure and temperature contours. Variation of temperature and pressure along centerline, outlet temperature variation and wall shear profile have been plotted. Axial velocity profile and temperature profiles at three different locations have been compared. In the present work simulation has been done for microchannel with diameter 0.76mm and 1.09mm with water as a coolant. Simulation has also been done for microchannel of diameter 0.76mm diameter with air as the coolant.