Flow and Thermal Investigation of a Groove-Enhanced Minichannel Application

Abstract

A grooved surface feature is considered as a potential thermal enhancement for electronics cooling with single-phase flow in minichannels. A power electronics module was initially designed using applied computational fluid dynamics (CFD) using a minichannel featuring a series of two-dimensional grooves. To validate these simulations, micro–particle image velocimetry (PIV) was used to examine the flow field at a turbulent Reynolds number of 5000. The velocity distribution was compared directly to CFD simulations of the same geometry. The flow structures matched quantitatively near the groove leading edge and on its windward side, but the flow speeds were significantly underpredicted on the leeward side, deviating by as much as 30% of the freestream speed. This discrepancy was attributable to the selection of the turbulence model in the simulations, which was determined using the micro-PIV results. Using a validated CFD model, simulations predict thermal enhancements on the order of 35%.