Comparison of the Volume of Fluid and CLSVOF Methods for the Assessment of Flow Boiling in Silicon Microgaps

Abstract

The three-dimensional (3D) stacking of integrated circuits (ICs), and emergent microelectronic technologies require low-profile cooling solutions for the removal of relatively high heat fluxes. The flow boiling of dielectric refrigerants represents a feasible alternative to such applications by providing compatibility with the electrical interconnections, relatively uniform temperature profiles, and higher heat transfer coefficients than those obtained with single phase-cooling. Despite important experimental evidence in this area has been recently reported in the literature, the modeling of such has remained in basic and limited forms due to the associated complexities with the physics of two-phase flow with phase-change. In an effort to expand the studied possibilities for the modeling of flow boiling, the present investigation compares two different phase-tracking methods for the analysis of such phenomena: the volume of fluid (VOF) and the coupled level set—volume of fluid (CLSVOF) techniques. These interface tracking and reconstruction techniques are coupled with a phase change model that accounts for the mass and energy transfer source terms to the governing equations. The geometric domain is constituted by a silicon microgap 175 μm high with a substrate thickness of 50 μm, and populated with circular pin fins of 150 μm diameter, where the heat conduction is simultaneously solved with temperature dependent properties. The flow boiling regimes and their spatial and temporal evolution are compared between both methods by maintaining the operating conditions. Results indicate that both methods provide a good capability to predict major two-phase flow regimes observed in experimental studies with these types of arrangements. However, the CLSVOF offers a sharper interface reconstruction than the standard VOF method by predicting bubble nucleation and departure mechanisms more closely to experimental observations.