Comparative Study of Effective Cooling in Microchannel Heat Sinks (MCHS) With Nanofluid and Hydrophobic Nanostructures Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

The goal of this research is to present an analytical model of nanostructures and study the effects of their geometry on the performance of micro channels. The pressure drop experienced by micro channels is of interest as it presents a limit on forced convection heat transfer. This work will demonstrate how the presence of nanostructures primarily affects pressure drop as well as other cooling flow characteristics. Additional work in the impact of microchannel cross-sectional geometry and friction factor formulation is provided as well. Multiple transient analyses were performed in ANSYS FLUENT to ascertain performance characteristics of microchannels without the presence of hydrophobic nanostructures. The results were compared to the analytical model developed in this study.