Investigation of Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics in Wavy Mini-Channel Heat Sink With Interconnectors

Abstract

In this paper, a novel sinusoidal wavy mini-channel heat sink (MCHS) with interconnectors (IC w-MCHS) has been introduced, and the effectiveness of the proposed heat sink over conventional mini-channel heat sink (s-MCHS) has been numerically investigated. Different parameters, i.e., wavelengths, wave amplitudes, and phase shifts of the proposed sinusoidal wavy MCHS, were varied to study its effect on thermal and hydraulic performance. This study used three different wavelengths, three different amplitudes, and two different phase shifts, and Reynolds number (Re) varied from 300 to 800. The Nusselt number (Nu) of IC w-MCHS increased as the wave amplitude ratio (α) and Re increased, whereas it increased with the decrement of the wavelength ratio (β). Nu of the IC w-MCHS was also found to depend on phase shift (θp); for θp = π, the chaotic advection and increment of flow reversal were observed in the IC w-MCHS compared to θp = 0, resulting in higher Nu and higher pressure drop penalty. Nu of the IC w-MCHS was found to be 115% higher compared to s-MCHS at Re 550, θp = π, and α = 0.3, whereas it was found 77% higher for θp = 0. The maximum temperature of the IC w-MCHS heat sink was also found to decrease compared to that of the s-MCHS due to enhanced coolant mixing. A maximum 26% decrease in the heat sink temperature was observed for the IC w-MCHS at Re 800 compared to the s-MCHS.