Heat Transfer Characteristics of Gaseous Flows in Micro-Channels

Two-dimensional compressible momentum and energy equations are solved to obtain the heat transfer characteristics of gaseous flows in parallel-plate micro-channels. The numerical methodology is based on the Arbitrary-Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) method. The computations were performed for channels with adiabatic walls to obtain the adiabatic wall temperature. The channel height ranges from 10 to 100 μm and the channel length is fixed at 30 mm. The stagnation pressure varies from 1.1×10⁵ to 4×10⁶ Pa. The outlet pressure is fixed at the atmosphere. The computations were also performed for channels with isothermal walls. The aspect ratio of the channel height and length is 100 or 200. The bulk temperature is compared with that of the incompressible flow in the conventional sized parallel plate channel.