Comparison of the Effect of Embedded Grooves on the Heat Removal and Pressure Drop in Microchannel Heat Sinks

This paper presents a numerical study for the single phase heat transfer of water in the heat sinks with different types of the grooved microchannels. The cross section of the grooves is either rectangular or arced shape. The grooves are embedded vertically in the side walls of the microchannel but for the floor, different orientation angles of the grooves in the range of 0–60° are investigated. As well, for the grooves on the floor of the channel, the chevron-shape is another pattern which has bee studied. A 3-D computational model is developed for each of the studied cases and the conjugate heat transfer in both solid and liquid is investigated. The governing equations are solved numerically to determine the pressure drop and heat transfer through the heat sink. The results of the heat removal and coefficient of performance (COP) for different types of the grooved microchannel heat sinks are compared to each other as well with those for a simple microchannel heat sink with minimum fin thickness. The comparison shows that the case with minimum vertical fin thickness and arc grooves aligned in 60° on the floor has the maximum heat removal and COP among the studied cases.