Design of a collector shape for uniform flow distribution in microchannels

The focus of this study is the design of a collector with the objective of achieving uniform flow in multiple parallel microchannels. This objective is achieved by understanding the limitations of current designs and a novel design is proposed, which is further carefully optimized. The existing collector shape considered is U-type, which is investigated numerically. The creation of a stagnation zone, growth of a boundary layer along the collector wall and low/high velocity zones in the collector are identified as the prime causes of flow maldistribution. A novel design, a dumbbell shape collector, is proposed to overcome the limitations of the earlier designs. The dumbbell shape is evaluated quantitatively and is found to perform better than all existing shapes. This dumbbell shape collector provides a uniform flow distribution with less than 0.4% relative difference from the average flow rate in different channels, which is substantially better than existing collectors with 2.3% relative difference from the average flow rate for Re-ch = 32. The uniformity is further confirmed using microparticle image velocimetry measurements. The dumbbell shape collector is generalized and optimized to cater to heat sinks of different dimensions and to broaden its applicability in both micro and macro dimensions.