Effect of developing flow and thermal regime on momentum and heat transfer in micro-scale heat sink

A developing micro-channel heat transfer and fluid flow has been investigated experimentally in rectangular micro-channels of Dh = 440 μm, having water as a working fluid. Infrared technique was used to design and built a micro-channel test section that incorporate internal fluid temperature measurements. The new method that provides information about the fluid temperature distribution inside the channel and provides validation for the methods used to determine the local and average Nusselt numbers. The experimental results have been compared with theoretical predictions from the literature and results obtained by numerical modeling of the present experiment. The experimental results of pressure drop and heat transfer confirm that including the entrance effects, the conventional theory is applicable for water flow through micro-channels. These results differ from the conclusions of several researches. It was shown that data presented by some researches can be due to entrance effects. The present results highlight the importance of accounting for common phenomena that are often negligible for standard flows such as accounting for profile of inlet velocity, axial heat conduction, effect of the design inlet and outlet manifolds. This paper, to the best of knowledge, is the first presentation on the method of the bulk fluid temperature measurements along micro-channel using IR technique, and calculation of the local heat transfer coefficient based on the local heat flux and the local temperature difference between the heated wall and the bulk fluid temperature.