Heat Transfer Enhancement in a Microchannel Heat Sink: Nanofluids and/or Micro Pin Fins

Here, we show that overall thermal conductance in a rectangular microchannel heat sink can be maximized with the combination of nanofluids and micro pin fins. We uncover the effect of micro pin fins and nanofluids both separately and simultaneously in order to uncover their effect on the thermal conductance (i.e., thermal resistance). Both nanofluids and micro pin fins decrease the overall thermal resistance due to increase in the average thermal conductivity of the flow system. In addition, they increase the heat transfer surface area of the solid interacting with the fluid. However, the pumping power (pressure drop) increases in both methods due to the increase in the resistances to the fluid flow. The results document what should be the nanoparticle volume fraction mixed into the base fluid and the micro pin fin volume in order to minimize thermal resistance. If the thermal conductivity of the nanoparticles and micro pin fins are the same, the thermal conductance becomes the maximum with 4% and 0.14% volume fractions for the nanofluid and micro pin fins, respectively. This result shows that inserting micro pin fins and using nanofluids with a given volume fraction ratio maximize the overall thermal conductance.