Correlations of heat transfer effectiveness in a minichannel heat sink with water-based suspensions of Al2O3 nanoparticles and/or MEPCM particles

In this work, an experimental study is carried out to examine the cooling performance of a minichannel heat sink using water-based suspensions of alumina nanoparticles (nanofluid), and/or microencapsulated phase change material (MEPCM) particles in terms of the averaged Nusselt number Nu¯itd, the wall temperature control effectiveness εTwεTw, and the averaged thermal resistance control effectiveness εRavgεRavg for the relevant parameters in the following ranges: the Reynolds number, Re = 133–1515; the mass fractions of the nanoparticles and/or MEPCM particles dispersed in the water-based suspensions, ωnp or ωmepcm = 0–10 wt.%; and the heating power. The heat sink was fabricated from copper with 10 rectangular minichannels which were maintained at a uniform base heat flux. The resulting experimental data for the various effectivenesses of using the water-based suspensions formulated in the minichannel sink were found well correlated with the relevant dimensionless parameters in general forms.