Utilisation of Nanofluids In Minichannel For Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow Augmentation

Abstract

Current trend of size reduction of electronic devices and heat exchangers to enhance their performance and energy conservation is pushing the limit of their heat transfer enhancement capabilities. Conventional fluids failed to provide required heat removal from high heat flux generating electronic devices and heat exchangers, due to their inherent low thermal conductivity. Nanofluid is an advance innovative thermal engineering fluid capable of providing outstanding heat transfer improvement than the conventional fluids, thus, increasing thermal system productivity and ensure energy sustainability. Just as the development and progresses in using nanofluids are recognized in literatures, also their medium of transportation i.e Micro (MC) and minichannels (MiC) are also receiving attention from researchers. They differ from conventional channels for having hydraulic diameter in the range of 0.01 – 0.2 mm and
0.2 – 3 mm for micro and minichannels, respectively. In this paper, the design of numerical study of cooling application of high heat flux dissipating devices is proposed using hybrid passive techniques of using nanoparticles as an additive in base fluid and the corrugated (Diverging-converging) minichannel heat sink to determine the performance of heat transfer and flow behaviour. The result expected to be achieved at the end of successful conduct of this research include: declaration of superiority of nanofluid over base fluid on improvement of heat transfer rate, and consequently enhanced convective heat transfer coefficient (HTC), minimal pressure drops which may not necessarily demand more pumping power of working fluid and reasonable level of thermal resistance.