Heat Transfer and Laminar Flow Characteristics and Correlations of Single-Phase Wavy Microchannel

As the demand for cooling electronic components continues to increase, the microchannel has become a widely applicable solution in electronic device cooling because of its excellent thermal characteristics and flexible structures. This paper focuses on the heat transfer process of a type of single-phase sinusoidal wavy microchannel heated from the bottom. A 3D model is established by COMSOL to perform stationary calculations for cases with the dimensionless amplitude (α) from 0 to 0.25 and Reynolds number (Re) from 60 to 1000. Temperature, velocity, and pressure distributions of the microchannel are calculated. Relationships between two sets of dimensionless parameters and equivalent thermal resistance (R), average Nusselt number (Nu), and friction coefficient (f) are investigated and presented. For α between 0.125 and 0.25, Re between 60 and 1000, and Prandtl number (Pr) within (6 ± 0.8), correlations of Nu and f are obtained through multi-parameter fitting. Performance evaluation criteria of wavy microchannels (PECwavy) are calculated, taking the straight rectangular microchannel (α = 0) as a reference. The case with α = 0.25 and Re = 1000 shows the greatest efficiency for Re between 400 and 1000.