A STUDY ON HEAT TRANSFER AND PRESSURE DROP CHARACTERISTICS FOR SINGLE PHASE FLOW IN RECTANGULAR MICROCHANNEL

An experimental investigation has been performed on the convective heat transfer characteristics for a single phase laminar flow in microchannels. The test sample used in this experiment contains 20 rectangular microchannels which have hydraulic diameter of 700 mu m. Distilled water was used as a working fluid. The experiments were conducted with the range of Reynolds number from 400 to 800, heat flux ranging from 35 to 85 kW/m(2) and the inlet fluid temperature of 20 degrees C. As experimental results, it was found that thermal entry length is about 10 similar to 40 mm and convective heat transfer coefficient has values in the range of 4.6 similar to 6.4 kW/m(2)degrees C except for thermal entrance region. A numerical analysis has been also carried out on the convective heat transfer and pressure drop in a microchannel. As the results of numerical analysis, correlations were suggested for the friction factor and Nusselt number as functions of Reynolds number in the fully developed region.