Numerical analysis of blockage and optimization of heat transfer performance of fractal-like microchannel nets

Abstract

The conjugate fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of fractal-like microchannel nets embedded in a disk-shape heat sink are investigated using a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. A constant heat flux is applied to the top wall of the heat sink. The intrinsic advantages of fractal-like microchannel nets such as low flow resistance, temperature uniformity, and reduced danger of blockage compared with the traditional parallel channel nets are demonstrated. In addition, various optimized designs with parameters such as the number of branches, number of branching levels, and number of channels that reach the center of the disk are addressed in this context. Copyright © 2006 by ASME.