An Experimental Investigation on Flow Behavior and Heat Transfer Affected by Roughness in the Circular Micro-Channels

Surface roughness is one of the most important factors to determine the flow and heat transfer characteristics of the microchannel. This paper experimentally and theoretically investigated the effects of surface roughness for the flow and heat transfer behavior within the circular microchannel. The stainless steel circular microchannels were fabricated by electrical spark-erosion perforating and drilling separately to control the relative roughness of the surface which is 1% for drilling method and 1.5% for electrical spark-erosion perforating method. Each test piece includes 44 identical circular microchannels in parallel with diameter of 0.4 mm. In the experiments, the air flowed through the circular microchannels with Reynolds number changing from 200 to 2600. The results showed that the surface roughness in microchannels has a remarkable effect on the performance of flow behavior and heat transfer within the circular microchannel. The values of Poiseuille number and Nusselt number are higher when the surface relative roughness is larger. At the same time, the flow behavior is inconsistent with the behavior within the macrochannel. For the flow behavior, Poiseuille number increases monotonously with the increase of Reynolds number, and is higher than the constant theoretical value. The Reynolds number for the transition from laminar to turbulent flow is between 1400 and 1600. For the heat transfer property, Nusselt number also increases as the increase of the Reynolds number.