Experimental and numerical study on flow heat transfer in microchannels

An investigation was conducted on liquid flow and heat transfer in partially heated microchannels etched on the surface of silicon substrates. The rectangular cross-section channels had a hydraulic diameter of 100 microns. A series of experiments were carried out at different liquid flow rates and heating power. A numerical approach was made for single-phase liquid flow in the microchannels. A laminar flow model was employed in the simulation. Solid-fluid coupled thermal energy model was proposed to solve the conjugate heat transfer in the fluid and solid domains. The comparison of simulations with the experiment results shows good agreement. High cooling capacity was found in present study compared with the available data, indicating strong entry-length effect.