Conjugate heat transfer in a Hexagonal micro channel using hybrid nano fluids

Abstract

Research is being focused on the use of micro channels with nano fluids as the heat sinks. This requires fundamental understanding of the heat transfer phenomenon in micro channels. The objective of this paper is to present results from a numerical study on laminar forced convection in a Hexagonal Micro Channel (HMC) heat sink. In particular, the numerical study is carried out using a single phase model. The fluid considered is Alumina-Copper hybrid Nano fluid. The performance of Al2O3+Cu+water is compared with Al2O3+water nano fluid and pure water with different volume fractions. The solid region of the channel is assumed as aluminum with a hydraulic diameter of 175?m. The solid and fluid regions of the micro channel are discretized using finite volume method by combining Navier Stokes equation and energy equation for conjugate heat transfer. The thermo physical properties for alumina nanoparticles are calculated by considering it as a spherical particle of 45nm diameter. The effect of surface roughness on convective heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop for the case of nano fluids is also considered. The analysis is further extended by adding pulsating input and by varying the velocity sinusoidally. The Brownian motion of nano particles is increased to study the efficiency of the heat sink. This ensures all the nano particles are in suspension and the randomness increases the micro convection in the fluid. Incorporating the pulsating flow increases the dispersion of the heat in the nano fluid at a faster rate and also decreases particle settlement in laminar flow. The combined effect of surface roughness and pulsating flow accounts for the change in the velocity profile and thermal boundary layer of the channel. Also the effect of surface roughness ranging from 0.2-0.6 is attempted and the variations in pressure drop, Nusselt number, and heat transfer coefficient are studied. The influence of hexagonal geometry and its interaction with alumina nano fluids is intensively studied by evaluating a three dimensional conjugate heat transfer model. The effect of side wall angle of 45�, 50� and 55� are computed to relate the velocity function with pressure drop, surface roughness and local heat transfer coefficient. The variation of Nusselt number with very low volume fraction of nano particles with a minimal amount of pressure drop is also presented. � 2016 ASME.