Analysis of laminar heat transfer in micro-Poiseuille flow

The present study examines laminar forced convective heat transfer of a Newtonian fluid in a microchannel between two parallel plates analytically. The viscous dissipation effect, the velocity slip and the temperature jump at the wall are included in the analysis. Both hydrodynamically and thermally fully developed flow case is examined. Either the hot wall or the cold wall case is considered for the two different thermal boundary conditions, namely the constant heat flux (CHF) and the constant wall temperature (CWT). The interactive effects of the Brinkman number and the Knudsen number on the Nusselt numbers are analytically determined. Different definitions of the Brinkman number based on the definition of the dimensionless temperature are discussed. It is disclosed that for the cases studied here, singularities for the Brinkman number-dependence of the Nusselt number are observed and they are discussed in view of the energy balance. (C) 2006 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.