Counter and Parallel Two-phase Flow MicroChannel Heat Sinks for Electronics Cooling

摘要

The thermal performance of counter flow and parallel flow microchannel heat sinks with two-phase flow have been analyzed using the finite element method. The present method develops a simple and practical approach to determine the thermal performance of counter and parallel flow microchannel heat sinks with either single-phase or two-phase flow. A unique 12 noded finite element representing a pair of adjacent channels of the heat sink is used for the analysis. The model is validated against experimental and simulation results available in the literature. Parameters such as the thermal resistance and pressure drop are calculated and the temperature distribution in the heat sink is plotted for various base heat fluxes ranging from 300 W/cm~2 to 500 W/cm~2. It is observed that two-phase flow in microchannel heat sinks generally yields low thermal resistance. A comparative analysis shows that counter flow heat sinks with two-phase flow yield better temperature uniformity in the stream-wise direction and their thermal performance is better than the parallel flow heat sinks both in terms of thermal resistance and pressure drop, especially at higher base heat fluxes.