Numerical Investigation of Nanofluid in a Rectangular Microchannel Heat Sink

The heat transfer in a 3-D rectangular microchannel heat sink (MCHS) for single phase liquid flow using nanofluids is numerically investigated for laminar flow (Re = 60-700). In the present work, the performance of microchannel using CuO/H2O nanofluid as a coolant with different volume concentrations ranged from 0 % to 5% is examined. The partial governing equations of fluid flow and heat are solved using ANSYS fluent 12.0 based on finite volume method. The evaluated microchannel performance was shown in terms of temperature and velocity contours, average Nusselt number and pressure drop. The thermo-physical properties of nanofluid are evaluated to study its effect on the flow and heat transfer at a reference bulk temperature. A Constant heat flux of 100W/cm2 will be provided to the bottom side of highly conductive silicon substrate. The present CFD calculated wall temperature and friction factor values were associated with the analytical data and good agreement is detected. The results revealed that the nanofluids aid to improve the coefficient of heat transfer by 11% when CuO/H2O nanofluid was used. The effect of the concentration of CuO nanofluid has been discussed with Reynolds number value and with the velocity of fluid. Furthermore, plots and calculations for the heat transfer coefficients and the average Nusselt number were carried out.