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In this paper the effect of axial heat conduction in a non-adiabatic counter flow microchannel heat exchanger is analyzed. The non-adiabatic nature of the heat exchanger causes fluids to exchange heat with the ambient which is at a constant temperature. There are three governing energy equations, one for each fluid and one for the wall separating the fluids. Two of the boundary conditions are the inlet temperature of the fluids. Insulated boundary conditions are used for the wall separating the fluids. The temperature of the fluids and the wall at several points between the inlets and outlets of the MCHXCF are obtained by solving the governing equations using finite difference method. Second order difference schemes are used for discretizing the governing equations. The effectiveness of the fluids depends on the NTU, axial heat conduction parameter, the ambient temperature and the ratio of the thermal resistance between the fluids to that between the ambient and the individual fluids. There is a decrease in the effectiveness of the fluids due to axial heat conduction alone. In the presence of just external heat transfer, increase in ambient temperature reduces the effectiveness of the hot fluid while increasing that of the cold fluid and the opposite trends occur if the ambient temperature is decreased. The combined effect of these two phenomena on the effectiveness of the fluids will depend on the net heat gained/lost by them.Copyright © 2009 by ASME

The need for dissipating heat from microsystems has increased drastically in the last decade. Several methods of heat dissipation using air and liquids have been proposed by many studies, and pin-fin micro heat sinks are one among them. Researchers have developed several effective pin-fin structures for use in heat sinks, but not much effort has been taken towards the optimization of profile and dimensions of the pin-fin. In this paper the authors studied the effect of different pin-fin shapes on the thermal resistance and pressure drop in a specific micro heat-sink. Optimization subjected to two different constraints is studied in this paper. The first optimization is subjected to constant flow rate and the second one is subjected to constant pressure drop. Both optimization processes are carried out using computer simulations generated using COVENTORWARE™. Two of the best structures from each of these optimization studies are selected and further analysis is performed for optimizing their structure dimensions such as width, height and length. A section of the total micro heat-sink is modeled for the initial optimization of the pin-fin shape. The model consists of two sections, the substrate and the fluid. Six different shapes: square, circle, rectangle, triangle, oval and rhombus were analyzed in the initial optimization study. Preliminary tests were conducted using the first model described above for a flow rate of 0.6ml/min. The non dimensional overall thermal resistance of the heat sink, and the nondimensional pumping power was calculated from the results. A figure of merit (FOM) was developed using the nondimensional thermal resistance and nondimensional pumping power for each structure with different pin-fin shapes. Smaller the value of FOM better the performance of the heat sink. The study revealed that the circle and ellipse structures have the best performance and the rectangle structure had the worst performance at low flow rates. At high flow rates rectangular and square structures have the best performance.

This paper deals with the effect of axial heat conduction on the hot and cold fluid effectiveness of a balanced parallel flow microchannel heat exchanger. The ends of wall separating the fluids are subjected to Dirichlet boundary condition. This leads to heat transfer between the microscale heat exchanger and its surroundings and thereby leading to axial heat conduction through the wall separating the fluids. Three one dimensional energy equations were formulated, one for each of the fluids and one for the wall. These equations were solved using finite difference method. The effectiveness of the fluids depends on the NTU, axial heat conduction parameter, and the temperature of the ends of the wall separating the fluids. With decrease in temperature of the end wall at the inlet section of the fluids, while keeping the temperature of the other end wall constant, the effectiveness of the hot and cold fluid increased and decreased, respectively. When the temperature at the ends of the wall separating the heat exchanger is average of the inlet temperature of the fluids then there is no axial heat conduction through the heat exchanger. The effectiveness of a counter flow microchannel heat exchanger is better than that of a parallel flow microchannel heat exchanger subjected to similar operating conditions, i.e. axial heat conduction parameter and end wall temperatures.

The applications involving fluid flow through microchannels in industry and research have increased significantly with the evolution of microfluidic devices such as lab-on-chip systems. Most of the previous studies concerning fluid flow were done using circular microchannels. However, there is an increased usage of noncircular microchannels, especially square microchannels, in microfluidic devices. Thus there is need for experimental studies on the behavior of fluid flow in square microchannels, and the comparison of the results with the results obtained from the conventional fluid flow equations is relevant. In this study the authors are focusing on the analysis of the friction factor associated with square microchannels of rounded edges under laminar flow conditions. Microchannels with hydraulic diameters of 200, 300, 400 and 500 micrometers and length of 10 cm and 5 cm are used in the analysis. DI-water and ethylene glycol at room temperature is used as the liquid for experiments. A constant liquid flow rate is achieved in the channels using a syringe pump that can pump from 50 μl/hr to 7,500 ml/hr using a 60 ml syringe, and a high precision pressure gauge is used to measure the pressure drop across the channel. The Reynolds number of the liquid flow in all the channels is kept constant between 20 and 120 by varying the flow rate. The friction factor at each Reynolds number is calculated and the results are compared with the friction factor of conventional channels. Experiments are conducted to measure the pressure drop across the channels. The pressure drop obtained across the 5 cm channel is subtracted from the pressure drop obtained across the 10 cm channel so that the effect of entrance effect can be eliminated from the results. The fiction factor obtained from the experiments is used to calculate the Poiseuille number. The experimental values of Poiseuille number are showing a median deviation of around 9% from the conventional values for all the different channels. The uncertainty is observed to be ca.9% for all the channels at all values of Reynolds numbers. The major factor contributing towards the total uncertainty is the uncertainty in the measurement of liquid flow rate.

This paper deals with the analyses of fluid flow distribution in a microfluidic device with in-line manifolds. The analysis was performed using commercially available microfluidic simulation software called CoventorWare™. The number of channels in the microfluidic device considered for this study was kept at ten due to limitations on the number of nodes and computational time. Channels with only square profile were analyzed for flow rates varying between 1 to 60 ml/min. The length of the channels was maintained at 1.5 cm for all simulations. The fluid flow distribution characteristics for different channel widths/depths (200, 100, and 75 μm) were investigated. It was observed that the flow rate decreased from the central channels to the outer channels. The flow per channel was symmetric about the geometric centre of the microdevice. The uniformity in flow was accessed using the root mean square value of flow per channel and it decreased with decrease in channel width/depth for a specific flow rate. The difference in the flow rate through the channels increased with increase in total flow rate. Similarly, the spacing between the channels was varied (300, 200, and 100 μm) for a microdevice with channel width/depth of 100 μm and its corresponding flow characteristics were studied for flow rate ranging between 1 ml/min and 60 ml/min. Finally, the length of each manifold was varied between 2500 μm and 1000 μm for understanding the effect of manifold length on flow distribution. The standard deviation of flow per channel did not show much variation with changes in spacing and manifold length. In addition each design of the manifolds was analyzed on the basis of pressure and flow rate as well as velocity profile in each of the channels.Copyright © 2009 by ASME