Numerical Study of Thermal-Hydraulic Performance of Wavy Microchannels for Electronic Cooling Application

In this study, the thermal-hydraulic performance of wavy microchannels was investigated using numerical simulation with finite volume method and Fluent software. Five different wavy geometries are considered to evaluate the effect of geometrical parameters such as wavy amplitude and wavelength on their thermalhydraulic performance in the range of 62.5 to 250 μm and 1250 to 5000 μm, respectively, for three wavy amplitude to wavelength ratios of 0.025, 0.05 and 0.1. The Reynolds number was in the range of 300 to 900 and the heat flux applied at the bottom surface of the channels was 80 2 / W cm . The results show that increasing the amplitude to wavelength ratio of the wavygeometries intensifies the secondary flows generated in the cross-sections and amplifies the exchange between the core flow and the flow near the channel walls and increases the heat transfer in these geometries. To evaluate the thermal-hydraulic performance of the studied geometries as the work novelty, the performanceevaluation criteria for each geometry was compared with both the straight geometry and the reference wavy geometry. This evaluation shows that the wavy geometrywith the amplitude of 250 μm and wavelength of 2500 μm had the best thermal-hydraulic performance in the studied range.

Keywords:

Wavy Microchannel , Secondary Flow , Electronic Cooling , Performance Evaluation Criteria