Analytical and Computational Heat Transfer of Single-Phase Liquid Metal

The idea of using room-temperature liquid metal for cooling high-performance electronic devices is currently reopening another climax of liquid metal convection heat transfer. Compared with traditional water cooling, the uniqueness and progressiveness of liquid metal cooling are that liquid metal has a high thermal conductivity, which gives it a stronger convection heat transfer ability. The thermohydrodynamic characteristics of liquid metal are the basis for the development of liquid metal cooling technology, and this chapter aims to systemically summarize the analytical and computational heat transfer of single-phase liquid metal. Gallium-based liquid metals are the most popular liquid metals for electronic device cooling in recent years, but as they are a new type, there are few empirical correlations directly tested from such liquid metals. The analytical and empirical correlations experimentally tested from other liquid metals, such as sodium-potassium alloy, lead-bismuth alloy, and mercury, were adopted, which is reasonable because the ranges of Prandtl number are satisfied by these empirical formulas. The liquid metals of numerical heat transfer investigations were gallium-based liquid meals. This chapter summarized the single-phase convective heat transfer of liquid metal, which is a useful reference for scientists and engineers engaged in liquid metal convection heat transfer.