Energy Conversion and Management 92 (2015) 244–250

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Enhancing heat transfer in microchannel heat sinks using converging

flow passages
Maziar Dehghan, Mahdi Daneshipour, Mohammad Sadegh Valipour ⇑, Roohollah Rafee,
Seyfolah Saedodin
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Semnan University, 35131-19111 Semnan, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Constrained fluid flow and conjugate heat transfer in microchannel heat sinks (MCHS) with converging
Received 14 August 2014 channels are investigated using the finite volume method (FVM) in the laminar regime. The maximum
Accepted 19 December 2014 pressure of the MCHS loop is assumed to be limited due to constructional or operational conditions.
Available online 8 January 2015
Results show that the Poiseuille number increases with increased tapering, while the required pumping
power decreases. Meanwhile, the Nusselt number increases with tapering as well as the convection heat
Keywords: transfer coefficient. The MCHS having the optimum heat transfer performance is found to have a width-
Microchannel
tapered ratio equal to 0.5. For this tapering configuration and at the maximum pressure constraint of
Converging channel
Heat transfer enhancement
3000 Pa, the pumping power reduces by a factor of 4 while the overall heat removal rate is kept fixed
Poiseuille number in comparison with a straight channel.
Pumping power Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction transfer in the solid part leads to an asymmetrical heat transfer. So

Trend toward reducing the size of parts in devices along with
increasing demand of heat exchange rate in a more concentrated
region, was the start point of microchannel heat sink (MCHS) intro-
duction. With heat fluxes greater than 106 W m2, cooling methods
with effective temperature control is required in MEMS technology
[1–3]. As a solution for removing high heat fluxes from small areas,
Tuckerman and Pease [4,5] introduced the use of microchannel
heat sinks for the first time in early 1980s because of the high
area-to-volume ratios.
The Navier–Stokes equations in microchannels have been veri-
fied in early 1990s [6,7]. Gamrat et al. [8] investigated the entrance
effects on the fluid flow and heat transfer in microchannels experi-
mentally and numerically. Their numerical simulations did not
reveal any significant scale-effect contrary to their experimental
results. It has been identified that the differences between experi-
mental data and result of classical relations are due to measurement
errors and low accuracy in microchannels construction. As the
geometry of microchannels is noncircular (often rectangular), heat
flux enters from one side, and consequently the 3-dimentional heat
⇑ Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: m-dehghan@semnan.ac.ir, dehghan.maziar@gmail.com
(M. Dehghan), mahdi.daneshipour@semnan.ac.ir (M. Daneshipour), msvalipour@
semnan.ac.ir (M.S. Valipour), rafee@semnan.ac.ir (R. Rafee), s_sadodin@semnan.ac.
ir (S. Saedodin).
that, analytic solutions based on simplified thermal boundary con-
ditions may not be much accurate. Moreover, Lee et al. [9] declared
that the real boundary conditions (and the real geometry of
channels) are not exactly same as conditions which are supposed
in classical solutions. Consequently, discrepancies exist between
experimental data of MCHS and numerical simulation results based
on conventional macro-channel assumptions. Morini [10] stated
that the following phenomena would be important because of the
size reduction: the axial heat transfer, conjugated heat transfer, sur-
face roughness, and viscous dissipation. Mirzaei and Dehghan [11]
studied the conjugate 3-D heat transfer of a nanofluid in a rectangu-
lar MCHS numerically based on the variable property approach.
They showed that because of a high difference between the inlet
and outlet temperatures of the working fluid, the change in thermo-
physical properties is not negligible. Also, they revealed that the
addition of a small amount of nano-particles with a high thermal
conductivity results in an overall enhancement in the heat transfer
ability. The analysis of flow and heat transfer in microchannel heat
sinks is an increasing interest of the modern engineering [12–19].
Beside investigations on flow and heat transfer in microchan-
nels, the optimization of heat and fluid flow has been an attracting
research area recently. Researchers have focused on optimizing
both the shape and dimensions to improve the heat transfer ability
of microchannels. Only a brief look at the recently published
articles in this field shows the importance of the subject [13]. Heat
transfer and flow characteristics in wavy microchannel heat sinks

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2014.12.063
0196-8904/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 M. Dehghan et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 92 (2015) 244–250 245

Nomenclature

A area (m2) Subscript

Cp heat capacity (J/kg K) app apparent
Dh hydraulic diameter (2WH/(W + H)) (m) ave average
 
f pin pz
friction factor 14 Dzh 1=2 b bulk
qu2av e c cross section
H height (m)
h convection heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 K) in inlet
k conductivity (W/m K) f fluid
Kn Knudsen number (l/Dh) h hydraulic
Nu Nusselt number (hDh/k) s solid
L length (m) W wall
l molecular mean free path (m) z axial location
P pressure (Pa)
q heat flux (W/m2) Superscript
T temperature (K) +, ⁄ dimensionless values
t thickness (m)
u axial velocity component (m/s) Greek letters
~
V velocity vector (m/s) a aspect ratio
W width (m) C perimeter (m)
z axial location (m) l viscosity (kg/m s)
q density (kg/m3)

with rectangular cross-section and various wavy amplitudes ran- micro heat exchangers [27,28]. As it was mentioned that the height
ged from 125 to 500 lm were studied numerically by Mohammed tapering has the least effects on the thermal performance of MCHS,
et al. [20]. In another work, Mohammed et al. [21] investigated only the width-tapered configuration is chosen in the present anal-
effects of different types of flow passage on heat and fluid flow ysis [25,26,29]. To compare the hydraulic and thermal performance
in MCHS. They applied zigzag, curvy, and step channel shapes of different configurations, it is assumed that the maximum pres-
and showed that the zigzag shape has the highest heat transfer sure should be limited to a pre-defined value due to constructional
and pressure drop among other shapes. Türkakar and Okutucu- or operational limitations. This constrained fluid flow in the
Özyurt [3] performed dimensional optimization of silicon micro- presence of heat transfer has not been previously investigated. Both
channel heat sinks by minimizing the total thermal resistance hydrodynamical and thermal characteristics including the pressure
considering multiple heat sources. The effects of three different graph, Poiseuille number, convection heat transfer coefficient, and
channel shapes (hexagonal, circular, and rhombus) on the MCHS Nusselt number are analyzed and discussed in this study.
performance were numerically analyzed by Alfaryjat et al. [22].
They showed that the hexagonal cross-section MCHS has the high- 2. Problem definition and mathematical modeling
est pressure drop and heat transfer coefficient among other shapes
while rhombus cross-section MCHS has the highest value of the top The schematic diagram of the problem is shown in Fig. 1 and
wall temperature and thermal resistance. Dehghan et al. [23], dimensions are presented in Table 1. The following assumptions
based on an extension to the study of Dehghan et al. [24], numer- are invoked in the present study:
ically investigated a combined convection–radiation heat transfer
inside a micro-channel filled with a porous medium in the  The flow is incompressible.
slip-flow regime. They presented the dimensionless temperature  According to the symmetry, only one half of the channel shown
and the Nusselt number. They showed that the presence of a finite in the right-side of Fig. 1 is considered.
temperature jump at the heated walls dramatically decreases the  The microchannel is made of aluminum.
Nusselt number.
Another branch in enhancing the overall performance of the
microchannels is varying the cross-section of the channel in the
flow direction. Hung et al. [25] compared conventional single-
layered and double-layered channels with tapered channels. They
found that the tapered channel has the best performance consider-
ing thermal resistance and temperature distribution uniformity
among other shapes. The optimal tapered channel design of a
MCHS with varying heights and widths was investigated by Hung
and Yan [26] using the objective function of the overall thermal
resistance. They found that the thermal resistance is sensitive to
variations in the channel number, channel-width ratio, or width-
tapered ratio while less sensitive to the height-tapered ratio.
In the present study, the problem of developing conjugate heat
and fluid flow within the range of 75–350 Reynolds numbers in
width-tapered microchannel heat sinks with the inlet aspect ratio
of 5 and the inlet hydraulic diameter of 333 lm is numerically
investigated using FVM. The 3-D heat and fluid flow in the converg- Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the problem; (a) isometric view of MCHS [11] and (b)
ing channels are practical in chemical reactors, bio-technology, and top view of a channel.
246 M. Dehghan et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 92 (2015) 244–250

Table 1 100
Dimensions of microchannel (lm). Wo=200, Pi=1500

Wi Wo Wc H L t Wo=200, Pi=2000
200 200, 150, 100, 75 400 1000 12000 500
Wo=200, Pi=3000

Mirzaei & Dehghan (2013)

 A maximum pressure value is adopted as the constraint of the

Po
problem. The maximum pressure value of the MCHS loop occurs Philips (1990)
at the entrance of the channel and is assumed to be equal to
1500, 2000, and 3000 Pa.
 The inlet width of the flow passage is fixed for all simulations
(Wi = 0.2 mm). While, the outlet width (Wo) is assumed to be
0.2, 0.15, 0.1, and 0.075 mm.

Two identifying parameters (the outlet width, Wo, and the inlet 10
pressure, Pi) are used in order to distinguish the results of each 0.001 0.01 0.1 1
case-study in Figs. 2–8. z+

Fig. 3. The Po number distribution with respect to z+.

2.1. Governing equations
2.2. Boundary conditions
Continuity, momentum and energy equations for the fluid part
A constant heat flux equal to 100 W cm2 is imposed to the bot-
are as following:
tom surface of the MCHS. Other sides are assumed to be insulated.
As it was discussed in the previous section, left and right walls are
r  ðq~
VÞ ¼ 0
symmetrical. Because of the symmetry, the gradient of the temper-
~
V:rðq~
VÞ ¼ rp þ r  ðlr~ VÞ ð1Þ ature and velocity normal to the symmetric planes are zero. At the
~ rðqcp T f Þ ¼ ð~
V: V:rÞp þ r  ðkf rT f Þ inlet, the temperature of the fluid is 293 K, and it enters with a
uniform velocity. At the exit, the gauge pressure is assumed to be
Energy balance in the solid part is: constant (equal to 50 Pa). Since the channel is long enough, fully
developed condition for velocity at the exit is employed. Since,
r  ðks rT s Þ ¼ 0 ð2Þ the molecular mean free path of water (l) is about 0.25 nm, the
Subscripts f and s represent the ‘‘fluid’’ and ‘‘solid’’ parts, respec- Knudsen number (Kn), defined as the ratio of the molecular mean
tively. ~
V is the velocity vector, p is the pressure, l is the fluid free path to the hydraulic diameter, falls in the no-slip regime
viscosity, q is the fluid density, cp is the specific heat of the fluid, (Kn < 0.001) [11]. So that, conditions of the no-slip and no-jump
k is the thermal conductivity, and T is the temperature. are taken at the interface of the solid–fluid parts as following:

Fig. 2. The procedure used for the case of two predefined pressure limits.
 M. Dehghan et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 92 (2015) 244–250 247

100 20
Wo=75, Pi=2000 Wo=75, Pi=3000

Wo=100, Pi=2000
Wo=100, Pi=3000
80
Wo=150, Pi=2000
Wo=150, Pi=3000
Wo=200, Pi=2000 15
60
Wo=200, Pi=3000
Po

Nu
40
10

20

0 5
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
z+ z*
Fig. 4. The Poiseuille number for different width-tapered configurations. Fig. 7. Effects of tapering on the Nusselt number.

3500 4.0E+4
Wo=75, Pi=3000
Wo=75, Pi=3000
3000 Wo=100, Pi=3000

Wo=150, Pi=3000 Wo=100, Pi=3000

2500 Wo=200, Pi=3000 3.0E+4 Wo=150, Pi=3000

h (W/m2)

2000 Wo=200, Pi=3000

P (Pa)

1500
2.0E+4
1000

500

1.0E+4
0 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 0.012
z*
z (m)
Fig. 8. Effects of tapering on the convection heat transfer coefficient.
Fig. 5. The area-weighted average pressure distribution along the flow direction.

2.3. Solution method and mesh sizing

The present study is a development to the study of Mirzaei and

Dehghan [11]. Finite volume method (SIMPLEC algorithm of Van
Doormal and Raithby [30]) has been used to solve the governing
equations. Convective terms have been discretized using the sec-
10 ond order upwind method. The artificial transient method in a
non-uniform structured grid has been adopted for solving and
Nu

Wo=200, Pi=1500
decoupling the problem [31–35]. The convergence criterion is the
Wo=200, Pi=2000 maximum dimensionless temperature difference between two
successive time-steps lower than 106. The problem has been
Wo=200, pi=3000
solved with different meshes. Difference between the local heat
Mirzaei and Dehghan (2013) transfer coefficients (h) in 40  75  150 and 20  50  100
Nu_3z; Lee et al. (2005) meshes is less than 3%. However the required computational time
increases dramatically. The code requires up to 20 h for the
1
0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1 adopted mesh number (x  y  z = 20  50  100) in a PC with
z* 3.1 GHz CPU and 4 GB RAM. For the finer mesh (40  75  150) it
requires at least 50% extra time to converge at the same precision
Fig. 6. The Nusselt number distribution with respect to z⁄. and convergence criterion. Mesh type is hexahedron with uniform
mesh size in the x- and y-directions, but in the z-direction (the flow
~ direction) the mesh size is increased by a factor of 1.01.
V ¼0
As it was mentioned, a maximum pressure value is adopted as
Tf ¼ Ts ð3Þ the constraint of the simulation. The outlet gauge pressure has
@T f @T s been fixed to be 50 Pa. Because only one value for the pressure
 kf ¼ ks
@n @n can be fixed as the boundary condition, the inlet pressure has been
248 M. Dehghan et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 92 (2015) 244–250
adjusted by varying the inlet velocity in a trial–error procedure.
The inlet velocity has been increased up to a certain value in which
the area-weighted value of the inlet gauge pressure equals to the
pressure limit. This limit has been assumed to be 1500, 2000,
and 3000 Pa. So, the inlet velocity would be different for each case.
This procedure, as a flowchart, is shown in Fig. 2. Also, Mirzaei and
Dehghan [11] proposed that the temperature dependency of mate-
rial could have major effects on the simulation result. Conse-
quently, the properties of the fluid phase have been adopted at
the mean operating temperature. To this aim, at first a solution
with properties at the inlet temperature has been obtained based
on the mentioned constraint. Then, the overall mean temperature
of the fluid phase has been calculated based on a volume averaging
to be used for evaluation of the thermophysical properties of water
listed in Ref. [36].
3. Results and discussion
The apparent friction coefficient properly covers inlet effects. It
includes the pressure drop due to both the wall shear stress and
momentum variation due to changes in the velocity profile [11]:
1 Dh pin  pz
f app ðzÞ ¼ ð4Þ
4 z 1=2qu2av e
2WH
Dh ¼ ð5Þ
W þH
uave is the area-weighted average velocity, Dh is the hydraulic diam-
eter given by Eq. (5), and fapp(z) is the apparent friction factor at dis-
tance z. W is the width of channel which varies along the flow
direction for a converging channel. Fig. 3 shows the Poiseuille num-
ber (Po = fapp  Re) which is a universal dimensionless number repre-
senting the hydraulic aspect of the problem versus a dimensionless
axial location (z+ = z  Dh1  Re1). A good agreement is seen
between the results of the present study (at different inlet pres-
sures) and those obtained by Mirzaei and Dehghan [11] and Phillips
[37]. Fig. 4 reveals the variation of Poiseuille number at different
width-tapered configurations. It can be seen that the Poiseuille
number increases with increased tapering. This increase dramati-
cally rises at width-tapered ratio (Wo/Wi) smaller than 0.5 (or
Wo < 100 lm). The scale analysis shows that the velocity gradient
on the walls has the order of magnitude equal to umax/Dh. The max-
imum velocity at each section (umax) increases with increased taper-
ing and simultaneously the hydraulic diameter decreases. On the
other hand, the friction factor (f) is proportional to the velocity gra-
dient, as well as the Po number. Consequently, the Po dramatically
increases when the width-tapering is remarkable. Fig. 5 depicts the
area-weighted average pressure with respect to the axial location. It
could be seen that the pressure gradient is semi-linear for the
straight channel (Wo = 200 lm) and for the channel with a
relatively low converging walls (Wo = 150 lm). By increasing the
width-tapering, the flow faces higher pressure gradients close to
the outlet. It was expected because the flow accelerates along the
flow direction when the walls are converging at the constraint of
a fixed overall pressure difference. Consequently, the higher accel-
erating process needs a relatively higher pressure gradient. It
should be noted that the pumping power decreases by increasing
the tapering since the overall pressure gradient is fixed and the vol-
umetric flow rate decreases.To compare the accuracy of the thermal
results of the present study with those of other researchers, Fig. 6 is
plotted. It shows the Nusselt number (Nu) with respect to a dimen-
sionless axial location (z⁄ = z  Dh1  Re1  Pr1). The Nu3z given by
Eq. (6) is the Nusselt number based on the assumption that a rect-
angular channel has one side insulated and three other sides
encountering a heat flux [9]:
1
Nu3z ¼ þ C4; 1 < a < 10
C 1 ðz ÞC 2 þ C 3
C 1 ¼ 3:122  103 a3 þ 2:435  102 a2 þ 2:143  101 a þ 7:325
C 2 ¼ 6:412  101
C 3 ¼ 1:589  104 a2  2:603  103 a þ 2:444  102
C 4 ¼ 7:148  1:328  10=a þ 1:515  10=a2  5:936=a3
ð6Þ
where a is the channel aspect ratio. To obtain the Nusselt number in
the present study, the way proposed by Mirzaei and Dehghan [11]
has been adopted. At first, the convection heat transfer coefficient
at a location equal to z should be defined in order to define the
Nusselt number (Eq. (8)).
qðzÞ
hz ¼ ð7Þ
T w ðzÞ  T b ðzÞ
hz Dh
NuðzÞ ¼ ð8Þ
k
Tw(z) is the wall temperature and q(z) is the heat flux at z, which
is calculated by Eq. (9) performing summations on the perimeter of
the channel at each cross section. Tb(z) is the bulk mean tempera-
ture given by Eq. (10).
P
C qðx;
P
y; zÞdAðx; y; zÞ
qw ðzÞ ¼ ð9Þ
C dAðx; y; zÞ
R
qucp T f dA
T b ðzÞ ¼ ARc ð10Þ
Ac
qucp dA
Fig. 6 shows that the Nusselt number has a very high value in
the entrance region, then decreases along the flow direction, and
finally tends to a constant value which depends on the geometry
of the channel [11,37]. Also, it confirms that the Nusselt number
is independent of the axial pressure gradient. To see effects of
tapering on the Nusselt number, Fig. 7 is plotted. The Nusselt
number, having a high value at the entrance due to the inlet effect,
decreases along the channel up to reach a fully developed value for
a channel with straight walls (Wo = 200). But, the Nusselt number
increases (after a reduction close to the entrance) in width-tapered
channels when the inlet effect diminishes. The converging walls
impose the fluid to have a velocity component in the x-direction.
Therefore, the fluid has more ability to transfer heat from the walls,
especially at z⁄ > 0.04 where the straight channel would be fully
developed. It should be noted that the hydraulic diameter
decreases in a width-tapered channel along the channel. So, the
convection heat transfer coefficient increases faster than the
hydraulic diameter reduction. The variation of the convection heat
transfer coefficient along the channel with tapering is revealed in
Fig. 8. It could be seen that the enhancement obtained by tapering
occurs somewhere between Wo = 100 and Wo = 75 lm. By increas-
ing the tapering, the heat transfer coefficient would not be
enhanced. This is in agreement with findings of Hung and Yan
[26] predicting that the optimum tapering ratio for the present
problem is about 0.5. In other words, the optimum outlet width
of the present problem should be about 100 lm. For this configu-
ration (Wo/Wi = 0.5) the inlet velocity (uin = 0.27 ms1) is half of
the inlet velocity of the straight channel (uin = 0.53 ms1) when
the maximum pressure is set to be 3000 Pa. Consequently, the
required pumping power is 0.25% of the straight channel one with
the same heat removal capacity. Another matter that can be
remarked here is that the local difference between the area-
weighted average temperature of the fluid and solid parts increases
near the entrance, then decreases near the end of channel, with
increasing width-tapered ratio. However, the overall temperature
 M. Dehghan et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 92 (2015) 244–250 249

350 represents the temperature difference between the solid and fluid
phases [38–40]. So, the irreversibility of the system and amount of
340 generated entropy would decrease and consequently the thermal
efficiency would enhance as well. Fig. 9 shows the temperature
of the bottom side of the flow passages along the flow direction.
330
It can be seen that the maximum temperatures of the channels fall
within the safe zone even for a tapered channel. For example, the
Tw (K)

320 third generation of IntelÒ core i-series processors can operate at

temperatures as high as 105 °C (378 K). To see the 3D temperature
310 Wo=75, Pi=2000 distribution in the fluid and solid parts of MCHS, Fig. 10 has been
Wo=100, Pi=2000 plotted. Fig. 10(a) shows that the fluid does not effectively absorb
the imposed heat flux and is relatively much colder compared to
300 Wo=150, Pi=2000
the solid part. By tapering and changing the flow pattern, and con-
Wo=200, Pi=2000 sequently lowering the fluid flow, the heat is transferred more
290 effectively to the fluid part. As a result, the overall temperature dif-
0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 0.012
ference between the fluid and solid parts decreases in Fig. 10(b)
z (m) according to what was predicted by the porous medium approach.
Fig. 9. Variation of the bottom-side temperature of flow passages along the flow
4. Conclusion
direction.

The conjugate heat transfer and constrained fluid flow in width-

tapered microchannel heat sinks have been investigated in the
laminar regime (Re < 350). The maximum pressure of the MCHS
loop has been limited due to a constructional or operational limi-
tation. Three different maximum pressures (1500, 2000, and
3000 Pa) and four different tapering configurations (Wo = 200,
150, 100, and 75 lm) have been analyzed for the problem. High-
lights of this study could be stated as following:

 The Poiseuille number increases with increased tapering. When

the width-tapered ratio (Wo/Wi) is smaller than 0.5, the increase
in the Poiseuille number is high.
 As the high and low pressures of the loop have been assumed to
be under the control, the pumping power decreases with
increased tapering because of the reduction in the flow rate.
 The pressure gradient is semi-linear for straight and semi-
straight ducts. It increases along the flow direction with
increased tapering.
 The Nu number is not sensitive to tapering in the entrance sec-
tion of the channel (z⁄ < 0.02).
 The Nusselt number increases with respect to the tapering
when the entrance effect of the flow diminishes. This happens
due to a velocity component toward the center-plane of the
flow passage.
 The enhancement in the heat transfer coefficient has an opti-
mum value when the width-tapered ratio (Wo/Wi) is about 0.5
in the present problem. For high width-tapered ratios (Wo/Wi)
the pressure gradient devotes to only to a small section near
the exit of the duct and the overall heat transfer performance
would not be enhanced.
 The required pumping power of the optimum width-tapered
configuration is 0.25% of the straight channel one with the same
overall heat removal capacity when the maximum pressure of
the loop is 3000 Pa. It is found that a MCHS with a moderate
width-tapered ratio (of about 0.5 when the inlet aspect ratio
is equal to 5) removes the same amount of heat flux as the
MCHS with straight flow passages, while the required pumping
power is considerably reduced.
Fig. 10. Temperature (K) contours of the MCHS (Pi = 2000 Pa); (a) Wo = 200 lm and
(b) Wo = 100 lm.
References

[1] Kakac S, Yener Y, Avelino M, Okutuko T. Single-phase forced convection in

difference decreases with tapering. It is predictable by the porous minichannel (a state-of-the-art review). In: Microscale Heat Transfer. Springer;
medium approach. As the specific area per volume and the local 2005 [chapter 1].
[2] Bontemts A. Measurements of single-phase pressure drop and heat transfer
convection heat transfer coefficient increase with increasing taper- coefficient in micro and minichannels. In: Microscale heat transfer. Springer;
ing, the local thermal non-equilibrium intensity decreases which 2005 [chapter 2].
250 M. Dehghan et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 92 (2015) 244–250
[3] Türkakar G, Okutucu-Özyurt T. Dimensional optimization of microchannel
heat sinks with multiple heat sources. Int J Therm Sci 2012;62:85–92.
[4] Tuckerman DB, Pease RFW. IEEE Electron Dev Lett 1981;2(5):126–9.
[5] Tuckerman DB, Pease RFW. Optimized convective cooling using
micromachined structure. J Electrochem Soc 1982;129(3):98C.
[6] Pfahler J, Harley J, Bau H, Zemel J. Liquid transport in micron and submicron
channels. Sens Actuat 1990;A21–A23:431–4.
[7] Makihara M, Sasakura K, Nagayama A. The flow of liquids in micro-capillary
tubes – consideration to application of the Navier–Stokes equations. J Jpn Soc
Precis Eng 1993;59(3):399–404.
[8] Gamrat G, Favre-Marinet M, Asendrych D. Conduction and entrance effects on
laminar liquid flow and heat transfer in rectangular microchannels. Int J Heat
Mass Transfer 2005;48:2943–54.
[9] Lee PS, Garimella SV, Liu D. Investigation of heat transfer in rectangular
microchannels. Int J Heat Mass Transfer 2005;48:1688–704.
[10] Morini GL. Scaling effects for liquid flows in micro-channels. Heat Transfer Eng
2006;27:64–73.
[11] Mirzaei M, Dehghan M. Investigation of flow and heat transfer of nanofluid in
microchannel with variable property approach. Heat Mass Transfer
2013;49:1803–11.
[12] Morini GL, Yang Y. Guidelines for the determination of single-phase forced
convection coefficients in microchannels. J Heat Transfer 2013;135. http://
dx.doi.org/10.1115/1.4024499. 101004-1.
[13] Wang XD, An B, Xu JL. Optimal geometric structure for nanofluid-cooled
microchannel heat sink under various constraint conditions. Energy Convers
Manage 2013;65:528–38.
[14] Valeh-e-Sheyda P, Rahimi M, Karimi E, Asadi M. Application of two-phase flow
for cooling of hybrid microchannel PV cells: a comparative study. Energy
Convers Manage 2013;69:122–30.
[15] Ting TW, Hung YM, Guo N. Effects of streamwise conduction on thermal
performance of nanofluid flow in microchannel heat sinks. Energy Convers
Manage 2014;78:14–23.
[16] Yang K, Zuo C. A novel multi-layer manifold microchannel cooling system for
concentrating photovoltaic cells. Energy Convers Manage 2015;89:214–21.
[17] Miner MJ, Phelan PE, Odom BA, Ortiz CA. An experimental investigation of
pressure drop in expanding microchannel arrays. J Heat Transfer 2014;136.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/1.4025557. 031502-1.
[18] Huang CY, Wu CM, Chen YN, Liou TM. The experimental investigation of axial
heat conduction effect on the heat transfer analysis in microchannel flow. Int J
Heat Mass Transfer 2014;70:169–73.
[19] Mirzaei M, Saffar-Avval M, Naderan H. Heat transfer investigation of laminar
developing flow of nanofluids in a microchannel based on Eulerian–Lagrangian
approach. Can J Chem Eng 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cjce.21962.
[20] Mohammed HA, Gunnasegaran P, Shuaib NH. Numerical simulation of heat
transfer enhancement in wavy microchannel heat sink. Int Commun Heat
Mass Transfer 2011;38:63–8.
[21] Mohammed HA, Gunnasegaran P, Shuaib NH. Influence of channel shape on
the thermal and hydraulic performance of microchannel heat sink. Int
Commun Heat Mass Transfer 2011;38:474–80.
[22] Alfaryjat AA, Mohammed HA, Adam NM, Ariffin MKA, Najafabadi MI. Influence
of geometrical parameters of hexagonal, circular, and rhombus microchannel
heat sinks on the thermohydraulic characteristics. Int Commun Heat Mass
Transfer 2014;52:121–31.
[23] Dehghan M, Mahmoudi Y, Valipour MS, Saedodin S. Combined conduction–
convection–radiation heat transfer of slip flow inside a micro-channel filled
with a porous material. Transp Porous Media in preparation [2014].
[24] Dehghan M, Rahmani Y, Ganji DD, Saedodin S, Valipour MS, Rashidi S.
Convection–radiation heat transfer in solar heat exchangers filled with a
porous medium: homotopy perturbation method versus numerical analysis.
Renew Energy 2015;74:448–55.
[25] Hung TC, Sheu TS, Yan WM. Optimal thermal design of microchannel heat
sinks with different geometric configurations. Int Commun Heat Mass Transfer
2012;39:1572–7.
[26] Hung TC, Yan WM. Optimization of a microchannel heat sink with varying
channel heights and widths. Numer Heat Transfer, Part A 2012;62:722–41.
[27] Hwang JJ, Tseng FG. Chin pan ethanol–CO2 two-phase flow in diverging and
converging microchannels. Int J Multiphase Flow 2005;31:548–70.
[28] Lee SS, Yim Y, Kyung H, Lee J. Extensional flow-based assessment of red blood
cell deformability using hyperbolic converging microchannel. Biomed
Microdev 2009;11:1021–7.
[29] Hung TC, Yan WM. Effects of tapered-channel design on thermal performance
of microchannel heat sink. Int Commun Heat Mass Transfer 2012;39:1342–7.
[30] Van Doormal JP, Raithby GD. Enhancements of the SIMPLE method for
predicting incompressible fluid flows. Numer Heat Transfer 1984;7:147–63.
[31] Dehghan M, Basirat Tabrizi H. On near-wall behavior of particles in a dilute
turbulent gas–solid flow using kinetic theory of granular flows. Powder
Technol 2012;224:273–80.
[32] Dehghan M, Mirzaei M, Mohammadzadeh A. Numerical formulation and
simulation of a non-Newtonian magnetic fluid flow in the boundary layer of a
stretching sheet. J Model Eng 2013;11(34):73–82.
[33] Dehghan M, Basirat Tabrizi H. Turbulence effects on the granular model of
particle motion in a boundary layer flow. Can J Chem Eng 2014;92:189–95.
[34] Dehghan M, Basirat Tabrizi H. Effects of coupling on turbulent gas-particle
boundary layer flows at borderline volume fractions using kinetic theory. J
Heat Mass Transfer Res 2014;1:1–8.
[35] Dehghan M, Mirzaei M, Valipour MS, Saedodin S. Flow of a non-Newtonian
fluid over a linearly moving sheet at a transient state; new similarity variable
and numerical solution scheme. J Model Eng in press [2015].
[36] Li Z, Huai X, Tao Y, Chen H. Effects of thermal property variations on the liquid
flow and heat transfer in microchannel heat sinks. Appl Therm Eng
2007;27:2803–14.
[37] Phillips RJ. Microchannel heat sinks, Advances in Thermal Modeling of
Electronic Components and Systems. New York: Hemisphere Publishing
Corporation; 1990.
[38] Dehghan M, Valipour MS, Saedodin S. Perturbation analysis of the local
thermal non-equilibrium condition in a fluid saturated porous medium
bounded by an iso-thermal channel. Transp Porous Media 2014;
102(2):139–52.
[39] Dehghan M, Jamal-Abad MT, Rashidi S. Analytical interpretation of the local
thermal non-equilibrium condition of porous media imbedded in tube heat
exchangers. Energy Convers Manage 2014;85:264–71.
[40] Dehghan M, Valipour MS, Saedodin S. Temperature-dependent conductivity in
forced convection of heat exchangers filled with porous media: a perturbation
solution. Energy Convers Manage 2015;91:259–66.