Flow characteristics and heat transfer performance in a Y-Fractal mini/microchannel heat sink

Abstract

This article presents a combined experimental and computational study to investigate the flow and heat transfer in a Y-fractal microchannel. Experimental apparatus was newly built to investigate the effect of three different control factors, i.e., fluid flow rate, inlet temperature and heat flux, on the heat transfer characteristics of the microchannel. A standard k-Ɛ turbulence computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed, validated and further employed to simulate the flow and heat transfer microchannel. A comparison between simulated results and the obtained experimental data was presented and discussed. Results showed that good agreement was achieved between the current simulated results and experimental data. Furthermore, an improved new design was suggested to further increase the heat transfer performance and create uniformity of temperature distribution. Keywords: Fluid flow, Heat transfer, Microchannel, Heat sink, Computational fluid dynamics