Three-dimensional numerical investigation on flow and heat transfer characteristics and multi-objective optimization of interconnected microchannels

The interconnected microchannel demonstrates excellent performance in enhancing flow heat transfer. However, the optimal width of the interconnecting slot has not been thoroughly investigated. To address this gap, this paper numerically simulates the three-dimensional flow and heat transfer of interconnected microchannels featuring varied slot widths and channel depths. The investigated slot widths range from 50 to 1000 mu m and depths of 100, 200, and 300 mu m. Evaluation of overall performance encompasses heat transfer and flow characteristics such as average wall temperature, heat transfer coefficient, thermal resistance as well as pressure drop. It is the interconnected slots that interrupt the velocity and thermal boundary layers, contributing to enhanced heat transfer. Furthermore, the back propagation neural network and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II are utilized for multi-objective optimization of thermal resistance and pressure drop. The technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) method combined with the entropy weight method is employed to select the compromise optimal solution from the Pareto optimal solutions. The optimized slot widths are 369, 424, and 167 mu m for channel depths of 100, 200, and 300 mu m, respectively. This research provides data support for the optimization design and engineering manufacturing of interconnected microchannels.