A study of turbulent heat transfer in convergent-divergent shaped microchannel with ribs and cavities using CFD

Abstract

This paper presents the effects of microchannel shape with ribs and cavities on turbulent heat transfer. Three-dimensional conjugate heat transfer using the SST k-ω turbulence model has been investigated for four different microchannels, namely, rectangular, rectangular with ribs and cavities, convergent-divergent (CD) and convergent-divergent with ribs and cavities (CD-RC). The flow field, pressure and temperature distributions and friction factor are analyzed, and thermal resistance and average Nusselt number are compared. The thermal performance of the CD-RC microchannel is found to be better than that of other microchannels considered in terms of an average Nusselt number increased from 16% to 40%. Heat transfer increases due to a strong fluid mixing and periodic interruption of boundary-layer. It is observed that with an increase in Reynolds number (Re), the thermal resitance drops rapidly. The thermal resistance of the CD-RC microchannel is decreased by 30% than that of the rectangular microchannel for Re ranging from 2500 to 7000. However, such design of microchannel loses its heat transfer effectiveness due to a high pumping power at high values of Re.