Parametric study on thermal performance of microchannel heat sinks with internal vertical Y-shaped bifurcations

Abstract

In this paper, internal vertical Y-shaped bifurcation plates are integrated with the microchannel heat sink (MHS), and its corresponding thermal and fluid flow characteristics are investigated numerically. The effect of the length of Y-shaped bifurcation and the angles of the arms on the overall performance are examined. A best Y-shaped plate length are firstly screened out from three designs and are compared with the corresponding rectangular smooth microchannel. Based on the best thermal performance with a specific length, the effect of arm angles in terms of five different configurations of Y-shaped plates are further investigated. Through the calculations, the corresponding flow field, temperature field and pressure drop characteristics are reported. It is found that the thermal performance of MHSs with internal Y-shaped bifurcations is much better than that of the traditional rectangular microchannel. The longest internal Y-shaped bifurcation microchannel results in best thermal performance. On the other hand, a larger arm angle leads to a better thermal performance of the internal Y-shaped bifurcation microchannel. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.