Modeling and Numerical Simulations of Vapor-Liquid Flow and Heat Transfer Within Microchannel Heat Sinks

Microchannel heat sinks have demonstrated the ability to dissipate large amounts of heat flux. This ability can be strongly enhanced by phase change of a liquid coolant. This paper numerically simulates the processes of liquid coolant flow, heat absorption and phase change within a microchannel, which is heated at one side by given heat fluxes. The two-phase flow model widely used in the investigations on heat and mass transfer within porous media is firstly introduced into microchannnel heat sinks by this paper. Experiential equations of the heat transfer coefficients in single phase and boiling region within microchannels are employed to calculate the convective heat exchange between solid wall and flowing fluid by an iterative process. The numerical results of pressure and temperature distributions obtained at different conditions are exhibited and analyzed. The results indicated that the trends predicted by this approach agree well with the previous references. Therefore the modeling is validated in some sense. At the same time, two phenomena, countercurrent flow in two-phase region and special pressure variations near the transition point, are exhibited.