Thermal-hydraulic performance of ammonia in manifold microchannel heat sink

With the increasing miniaturisation of electronic devices, the demand for cooling technologies with high efficiency has increased. Therefore, in this study, a manifold microchannel heat sink was designed and fabricated to enhance the dissipating capability of high-heat-flux hotspots. Owing to its excellent thermophysical properties, ammonia was selected as the working fluid, and its thermal-hydraulic characteristics were evaluated. In addition, the effects of flow rate, heat flux, saturation temperature, and inlet conditions were investigated through experiments. High-subcooled inlet experiments revealed that the thermal resistance decreased and pressure drop increased with increasing flow rate. Moreover, localised subcooled boiling was observed near the heated region. In near-saturated inlet experiments, jet impingement and microchannel cooling were identified as the dominant heat transfer mechanisms over different flow ranges. Notably, the higher heat flux, lower saturation temperature, and two-phase inlet condition reduced the thermal resistance under the operating conditions of the study. The proposed heat sink dissipated the heat flux (up to 1542 W/cm2) from the heat source (1 mm x 6 mm) with a pressure drop of 10.6 kPa, and the corresponding heating surface temperature and thermal resistance were 68.05 celcius and 0.450 K/W, respectively.