Thermal and hydraulic characteristics of nanofluid in a triangular grooved microchannel heat sink (TGMCHS)

A numerical simulation is conducted to examine the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics of nanofluids in a triangular grooved microchannel heat sink (TGMCHS). The governing and energy equations are solved using the finite volume method (FVM). The influence of the geometrical parameters such as the angle (50–100°), depth (10–25 lm) and pitch (400–550 lm) of the groove on the thermal performance of TGMCHS was examined. The effects of different nanoparticle types (Al 2 O 3 , CuO, SiO 2 , ZnO), volume fraction (Ø = 0.01– Ø = 0.04), particle diameter (25–80 nm) and base fluid (water, ethylene glycol, engine oil) at different Reynolds numbers are also studied. The thermal performance of TGMCHS had significant increment with the increment of angle and depth of the groove accompanied with an optimum groove pitch. It is found that the TGMCHS thermal performance of using Al 2 O 3 –H 2 O (Ø = 0.04, d np = 25 nm) is outperformed the simple MCHS using water. Microchannel heat sink (MCHS) has gained great amount of interest in electronic cooling industry due to the requirement of high heat dissipation in a small foot print electronic device such as processors. The first design of MCHS that made of silicon wafer with foot print of 1 Â 1 cm 2 was proposed by Tuckerman and Pease [1]. The width, depth and wall thickness of the MCHS were 50 lm, 302 lm and 50 lm respectively. It was found that the maximum temperature raise of substrate was 71 °C above the water inlet temperature with pressure drop of 2.2 bar. From thereon, many studies were carried out to enhance its performance through various methods. The advancement in MCHS research is carried on through theoretical as well as experimental methods. Qu and Mudawar [2] conducted both experimental and numerical analysis on the simple microchannel heat sink with width and depth of 231 lm and 713 lm respectively. Both numerical and experimental result agreed well and it was found that higher Reynolds numbers resulted in lower water outlet temperature and the temperatures within the heat sink with penalty of higher pressure drop. Fedorov and Viskanta [3] developed a 3D numerical model to investigate the conjugate heat transfer in a MCHS. A complex heat flow pattern was found in the channel due to combined convection and conduction effects. The authors also provided some vital recommendations for cooling efficiency …