INFLUENCE OF SOME VARIABLE PARAMETERS ON HORIZONTAL ELLIPTIC MICRO-CHANNELS WITH INTERNAL LONGITUDINAL FINS

The study investigates the laminar flow and heat transfer characteristics in elliptic micro-channels of varying axis ratios and with internal longitudinal fins, operating in a region that is hydrodynamically and thermally fully developed; purposely to determine the effects of some salient fluid and geometry parameters such as Reynolds number, Prandtl number, aspect ratio ( and fin heights on flow pattern and rate of heat transfer. Numerical method using the finite difference technique was adopted for the solution. A code in Quick Basic was developed to generate the results. Results show that fin height of H=0.6 provided the optimum heat transfer enhancement for the configuration of e = 0, e= 0.433 and e=0.714; for e=0.866, fin height of H= 0.4 is tolerable. Result also show that Nusselt number increases with Reynolds number for all axis ratios investigated. However, at Re=200 a slight trough was observed in Nusselt number Versus Reynolds number relationship indicating a critical flow condition. It was also established that at , Nusselt number and bulk fluid temperature, are independent of fluid properties.