Fabrication and Performance of a Pin Fin Micro Heat Exchanger

Nickel micro pin fin heat exchangers can be electroplated directly onto planar or non-planar metal surfaces using a derivative of the LIGA micromachining process. These heat exchangers offer the potential to more effectively control the temperature of surfaces in high heat flux applications. Of particular interest is the temperature control of gas turbine engine components. The components in the gas turbine engine that require efficient, improved cooling schemes include the gas turbine blades, the stator vanes, the turbine disk, and the combustor liner. Efficient heating of component surfaces may also be required (i.e., surfaces near the compressor inlet to prevent deicing). In all cases, correlations providing the Nusselt number and the friction factor are needed for such micro pin fin heat exchangers. Heat transfer and pressure loss experimental results are reported for a flat parallel plate pin fin micro heat exchanger with a staggered pin fin array, with height-to-diameter ratios of 1.0, with spacing-to-diameter ratios of 2.5 and for Reynolds numbers (based on the hydraulic diameter of the channel) from 4000 to 20,000. The results are compared to studies of larger scale, but geometrically similar, pin fin heat exchangers. To motivate further research, an analytic model is described which uses the empirical results from the pin fin heat exchanger experiments to predict a cooling effectiveness exceeding 0.82 in a gas turbine blade cooling application. As a final point, the feasibility of fabricating a relatively complex micro heat exchanger on a simple airfoil (a cylinder) is demonstrated.