Numerical Analysis of Thermally Developing and Fully Developed Flow in Different Configurations of Microchannels

Microchannels based on Micro Electromechanical Systems (MEMS) have garnered a great lot of interest over the past 40 years from the fields of microfluidics and biomedicine. In order to address the problem of heat dissipation in incredibly small integrated circuits with up to 790 W/cm 2 of huge heat dissipation capabilities, Tuckerman et al. [1] first proposed the microchannel heat rejection idea in 1981. These channels are typically at the microscale, with characteristic dimensions on the order of micrometers 10 -6 m or smaller as shown in Figure 1 [2]. These channels often exist at the microscale and have characteristic diameters of micrometres 10 -6 m or less. Microchannels display distinct fluidic behaviour as a result of their small size. Because the flow is normally laminar and the Reynolds number is low, the flow pattern is predictable. Capillary forces and other surface forces become comparatively more important. As a result, fluid behaviour in microchannels is greatly influenced by surface wetting characteristics and channel surface roughness.