Effect of Flow Pulsation on the Heat Transfer Performance of a Minichannel Heat Sink

Heat sinks with liquid forced convection in microchannels are targeted for cooling electronic devices with a high dissipated power density. Given the inherent stability problems associated with two-phase microchannel heat transfer, this paper investigates experimentally the potential for enhancing single-phase convection cooling rates by applying pulsating flow. To this end, a pulsator device is developed which allows independent continuous control of pulsation amplitude and frequency. For a single minichannel geometry (1.9 mm hydraulic diameter) and a wide range of parameters (steady and pulsating Reynolds number, Womersley number), experimental results are presented for the overall heat transfer enhancement compared to the steady flow case. Enhancement factors up to 40% are observed for the investigated parameter range (Reynolds number between 100 and 650, ratio of pulsating to steady Reynolds number between 0.002 and 3, Womersley number between 6 and 17). Two regimes can be discerned: for low pulsation amplitude (corresponding to a ratio of pulsating to steady Reynolds number below 0.2), a small heat transfer reduction is observed similar to earlier analytical and numerical predictions. For higher amplitudes, a significant heat transfer enhancement is observed with a good correspondence to a power law correlation. This work establishes a reference case for future studies of the effect of flow unsteadiness in small scale heat sinks.