Cooling performance of a microchannel heat sink with nanofluids

In this paper, the cooling performance of a microchannel heat sink with nanoparticle–fluid suspensions (“nanofluids”) is numerically investigated. By using a theoretical model of thermal conductivity of nanofluids that accounts for the fundamental role of Brownian motion, we investigate the temperature contours and thermal resistance of a microchannel heat sink with nanofluids such as 6 nm copper-in-water and 2 nm diamond-in-water. The results show that the cooling performance of a microchannel heat sink with water-based nanofluids containing diamond (1 vol.%, 2 nm) at the fixed pumping power of 2.25 W is enhanced by about 10% compared with that of a microchannel heat sink with water. Nanofluids reduce both the thermal resistance and the temperature difference between the heated microchannel wall and the coolant. Finally, the potential of deploying a combined microchannel heat sink with nanofluids as the next generation cooling devices for removing ultra-high heat flux is shown.