Effects of Heating Load on Flow Resistance and Convective Heat Transfer in Micro-pin-fin Heat Sinks with Different Cross-section Shapes

The flow and convective heat transfer characteristics under different heating loads in micro-pin-fins of circle, diamond and triangle are experimentally investigated with Reynolds number ranging from 0-1,000. The pressure drops, friction factors, thermal resistance and Nusselt number in micro-pin-fins with different cross-section shapes are obtained when the heating load changes from 50 to 150W. Basing on the experimental results, the mechanisms of the influence of heating load on the resistance and heat transfer characteristics in micro-pin-fins with different cross-section shapes are detailed analysed. It is found that pressure drops in three types of micro-pin-fins all become large with the increase of the heating load, and the change of pressure drop in triangular micro-pin-fins is larger than those in the other two micro-pin-fins. At low Re, the friction factors in the three types of micro-pin-fins become large with the increase of the heating load, but this phenomenon disappears when Re>400 for the circle and diamond micro-pin-fins, and Re>250 for the triangular micro-pin-fins. The convective heat transfer in micro-pin-fins with cross-section shapes of circle, diamond and is enhanced by increasing the heating load, but the convective heat transfer coefficients and Nu in the triangular micro-pin-fins becomes slightly smaller when Re>250.