Experimental and numerical investigation of nanofluid forced convection inside a wide microchannel heat sink

This paper aims to study the laminar convective heat transfer of an alumina-water nanofluid flow inside a wide rectangular microchannel heat sink (94.3 mm, 28.1 mm and 580 μm; length, width and height, respectively) both numerically and experimentally. For experimental study, a microchannel is made using a silicon wafer with glass layers. For the numerical study, a two-phase Eulerian–Eulerian method using the finite volume approach is adopted in this study. Comparing the experimental and numerical results show that two-phase results are in better agreement with experimental results than the homogeneous (single-phase) modeling. The maximum deviation from experimental results is 12.61% and 7.42% for homogeneous and two-phase methods, respectively. This findings show that the two-phase method is more appropriate than the homogeneous method to simulate the nanofluid heat transfer. Also, the two-phase results show that the velocity and temperature difference between the phases is very small and negligible. Moreover, the average Nusselt number increases with an increase in Reynolds number and volume concentration as well as with a decrease in the nanoparticle size.

► We investigate the nanofluid forced convection in a wide microchannel heat sink.
► Both experimental and numerical approaches are employed.
► Two fluid model for nanofluid flow and finite volume method is considered.
► Two-phase results are in better agreement with experiments than single-phase model.
► The velocity and temperature difference between the phases are small and negligible.