Effect of Pin-Fin Geometry onMicrochannel Performance

摘要

Purpose: A numerical analysis is carried out to study the efect of pin fn geometry on the performance of microchannel heat sinks. Design/methodology/approach: A three-dimensional numerical analysis is carried out using the conjugate heat transfer module of COMSOLMULTIPHYSICS software. Initially, the study is carried out for a microchan-nel heat sink with elliptical pin fns of 500 μm fn height, and the results of the same are validated with the results obtained from the literature. Further, the efect of diferent pin fn shapes and pin fn heights is investi-gated in terms of Nusselt number and pressure drop. The analysis is carried out with diferent pin fn shapes viz. ellipse, circle, square and hexagon. The pin fn height for all channels is varied from300 μmto 700 μm. The total surface area of the channel coming into contact with coolant is kept constant for diferent coolant infow velocities. Findings: Higher values of Nusselt numbers are obtained for fn pins at larger height and high coolant inlet velocities. At coolant inlet velocity of 1 m/s, as pin fn height increases from 300 μm to 700 μm, the channel with circular pin fns shows a maximum increment of 66% and elliptical pin fns shows a minimum increment of 40% in terms of Nusselt number. A maximum value of Nusselt number observed is 21.36 with square pin fns of 700 μm fn height and a minimum of 6.03 Nusselt number with circular fns of 300 μm fn height. OriginalityOriginality/Value: This study is useful in appropriate selection of pin fn geometry for enhancing the performance of microchannel heat sink.