Investigation on the thermohydraulic performance of a microchannel heat exchanger incorporating staggered truncated fins

A rectangular microchannel featuring staggered and truncated fins was formulated and numerically simulated in this study. The influence of stagger distance, fin angle, and fin height on overall performance was analyzed. The phenomenon was obtained that increasing the stagger distance could significantly decrease the pressure drop, while enhancing the thermal behavior with an initially increase and then decrease trend. This can be ascribed to the disturbance induced by the staggered fins, promoting the diversion of flowlines and enhancing heat transfer through improved blending of hot and cold fluids. Increasing the fin angle can increase thermal performance while simultaneously leading to a significant increase in pressure drop. Increasing the fin height resulted in greater thermal enhancement and flow resistance, with the maximum thermal enhancement observed when there is a certain gap at the upper end of the fins. Subsequently, the effects of these three parameters were further investigated by RSM. The results indicated that the impact of the parameters on heat transfer and overall performance followed an increasing-then-decreasing trend. By optimizing the parameters, the best combination was found to be $L=0.18\mathrm{mm}$, $A={42.5}^{°}$, $H=0.16\mathrm{mm}$, and the maximum $\mathrm{PEC}$ of 1.33 was achieved at $Re=416$.