MICROCHANNEL HEAT EXCHANGER PERFORMANCE TESTING AND CHANNEL DESIGN OPTIMIZATION

Metal-based microchannel heat exchangers (MHE’s) are of current interest for use in high performance cooling applications where high strength is also desired. Metal based MHE’s offer superior heat conductivity and structural integrity over their Si-based counterparts. A study of the performance characteristics of various designs of microchannels for use in metal-based MHE’s was conducted. Heat transfer experiments are being conducted on copper MHE’s with rough channel walls (pictured in Figure 1 below), and CFD models of these rough channels will be created to simulate the flow and heat transfer characteristics found in the experiments. Also, CFD models of microchannels with designed bumps were created to analyze the effect that various designs have on the flow and heat transfer characteristics of the microchannels.