Thermal performance of nanofluids in rectangular microchannel with vortex generators: Application of electronic components cooling

Laboratory of Energy and Heat and Mass Transfer (LETTM), Faculty of Sciences of Tunis (FST), University of Tunis El-Manar, El Manar 2, 2092 Tunis, Tunisia

^* Corresponding author: marzouguimbrk@gmail.com

Abstract

In this study, the contributions of Au, Cu and Ag nanoparticles for enhancing the heat transfer in the rectangular microchannel heat sink with vortex generators are compared in this work. A two dimensional numerical method is used to simulate the forced convection of water-based suspensions of different nanoparticles in the microchannel heat sink submitted to a constant and uniform temperature (T= 303K) at the wall . The gouverning equations are solved numerically using code FLUENT based on CFD method. Comparisons with previously published work on the basis of special cases are performed and found to be in excellent agreement. The effect of volume fraction, Reynolds number and type of nanoparticles on the fluid flow and heat transfer processes within the microchannel are analyzed. In addition, an analysis of isothermals and streamlines based on the different nanofluid are developed and presented. It is shown that the different nanoparticles within different thermal conductivity values have substantial effects on the results. Finally, the local and average Nusselt number for various Reynolds numbers and volume fractions are presented.