Latest Advancements in Heat Transfer Enhancement in the Micro-channel Heat Sinks: A Review

Miniaturization of the energy systems and high powered electronic devices necessitates the high capacity compact heat exchangers to dissipate the heat generated. Microchannel heatsinks (MCHS) are modern heat exchangers with the fluid flowing channels of size in microscale. These are very compact heat exchangers with higher ratios of heat transfer area to the volume. Huge research work has been going on to improve the hydraulic and thermal performance of the MCHS. This article provides the information about experimental and numerical studies that has been done on the heat transfer and its enhancement in micro-scale cooling devices. This review mainly concentrate on the heat transfer enhancement techniques in microchannel, numerical methods that has been implemented for the study of micro-channels and the parameters which effects the heat transfer rate. The recent studies on microchannel heat sink to improve its performance by geometry modifications, jet impingement, using Nano fluids, flow boiling and Magneto-hydrodynamics are thoroughly discussed in this article.