Developing Enhanced Micro-Scale Heat Transport Designs and Optimization Models

The growing demands for higher heat flux dissipation have motivated the researcher to look for new concepts and designs for enhanced heat transport. The higher surface area and smaller volume have led the researchers to investigate the potentials of heat transport at micro-scale. The liquid flow in smooth and roughened micro-channels, flow in micro-heat exchangers, flow boiling and jet impingement at micro-scale have been perceived as the next generation solutions for enhanced heat transfer problems. The understanding of micro-scale heat transport and development of enhanced heat transfer models have been focus of research during last decades. The performance enhancement through various techniques that were successfully used at macro-scale was the recent trend of the research at micro-scale. At micro-scale the phenomena of fluid flow and heat transport differs from the one at conventional scale due to the significance of scaling effects and temperature dependence of fluid properties. The proposed research is planned to comprehend the underlying mechanism of various heat transfer enhancement techniques, viz., passive structures inside the micro-channels, micro-jet impingements, phase change in micro-passages etc. The focus of the proposed research is the development of three-dimensional numerical models to predict the fluid flow and heat transfer phenomena of liquid flow, phase change flow and jet impingement at micro-scale. The proposed research also includes design optimization of the enhanced heat transport devices with the help of surrogate methods. The above research activities require the computing facility which would be set up as a part of this research. This research will provide undergraduates and graduate students a platform to broaden their research dimensions in computational fluid mechanics, heat transport at micro-scale and MEMS device modeling.