Parametric study of fluid flow and heat transfer in microchannel heatsink embedded with semi-circular cavities for thermal management of microelectronics chips

This article reports a single phase microchannel heatsink embedded with a semi-circular cavity for proper thermal management of microelectronic chips. The model-based parametric study is covered to illustrate the impact of the hydraulic diameter of the microchannel, radius of the semi-circular cavity as well as pitch distance between two successive semi-circular cavities. The heat sink composed of several microchannels is solved using continuity equation, Navier-Stokes equations, and energy equations that make up for the model's mathematical foundation. The Fluent module of Ansys Workbench is employed to solve the model for a Reynolds number range of 250 to 1500. The proposed heatsink model is quantified using two characteristic parameters such as thermal resistance and pumping power. The influence of the cavities creates a greater impact on the fluid flow and heat transfer due to the formation of vortices inside cavities. Decrease in the pitch distance of two successive cavities as well as decrease in the hydraulic diameter of the microchannel leads to reduction and elevation in thermal resistance and pumping power respectively. Increase in the semi -circular cavity radius has negligible effect on both thermal resistance as well as pumping power.