Convective heat transfer characteristics of line-to-line vascular microchannel heat sink with temperature-dependent fluid properties

A three-dimensional numerical model of line-to-line vascular microchannel heat sink with temperature-dependent fluid properties is established in this paper. The maximum temperature differences, the global thermal resistances, the pressure differences between the outlet and inlet of the channels and the thermal effectivenesses of the vasculars from the first order to the fourth order are calculated with different total mass flows per second of the cooling fluid and different rates of input heat flow per unit area. The convective heat transfer characteristics of the line-to-line vasculars are comprehensively analyzed. The results show that the ability resisting the increase of the rate of input heat flow per unit area of the vascular becomes stronger while the thermal effectiveness decreases as the order number of the vascular increases, while under the conditions with higher total mass flow per second of fluid and higher order number, the effect of the increase of order number on the decrease of the thermal effectiveness is relatively weaker. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.