Finite Element Method Analysis of a MEMS-Based Heat Exchanger with Different Channel Geometries

The Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) based heat exchangers had become popular recently in many practical applications. For example, MEMS heat exchangers can be used as a cooling system for micro-chips squeezed into smaller and smaller spaces, with very little place for heat to escape. Therefore, the improvement of their heat transfer characteristics is a key issue for the development of micro-scale integrated systems. In this paper, it was implemented a basic unit model for a micro-heat exchanger using commercial Finite Element Method (FEM) package Comsol Multiphysics (version 5.0). Thermal performance for this model having four different fluid channel geometries: circular, rhombic, square and octagonal was investigated in terms of the temperature gradient, effective volumetric heat capacity, total internal energy and total enthalpy distributions along the hot and cold channels.