Investigation of Nanofluid Flow Field and Conjugate Heat Transfer in a Microchannel Heat Sink with Four Different Arrangements

In this study three dimensional fluid flow and heat transfer of Al2O3-water nanofluid in a triangular microchannel heat sink, consisting from seven isosceles triangular microchannels, have been investigated numerically by considering conduction in solid parts. The governing equations have been solved using finite volume method based on finite element and utilizing coupled algorithm. The objective has been investigating the effects of four inlet/outlet flow arrangements on flow field and heat transfer of Al2O3-water nanofluid. These arrangements consist of: inlet from the center of the north wall and outlet from the center of the south wall (I-type), inlet from the right side of the north wall and outlet from the left side of the south wall (N-type), inlet and outlet from the top and bottom parts of the west wall (D-type) and inlet from the upper part of the east wall and outlet from the bottom of the west wall (S-type). Also the effects of the Brownian motion of nanoparticles and temperature-dependent properties of the nanofluid have been considered. The results showed that increasing the nanoparticles volume fraction from 0 to 4% increases the average Nusselt number between 4.72% and 5.47, decreases thermal resistance between 1.81% and 2.34% and decreases the ratio of maximum temperature difference of heat sink substrate to heat flux between 1.28% and 1.56%. Also the results indicated that the I-type arrangement has a better heat transfer performance, lesser thermal resistance and provides more uniform temperature distribution. In this case, the I-type arrangement has higher Nusselt number between 1.69% and 18.33%, lower thermal resistance between 3.55% and 29.29%, and a smaller ratio of maximum temperature difference of heat sink substrate to heat flux between 5.23% and 36.25%, when compared with those of other arrangements. The heat sink performance characteristics have improved between 0.1% and 0.75% by considering the Brownian motion and between 1.9% and 3.9%, by considering temperature dependent properties.