Optimum design of triangular shaped micro mixer in micro channel heat sink

Navin Raja Kuppusamy, N.N.N. Ghazali , R. Saidur

a Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala
Lumpur, MALAYSIA.

Abstract
The present study emphases on effect of triangular shaped micro mixers that placed
between the main stream channels in micro channel heat sink (MCHS). These micro
mixers are constructed based on three parameters (inner and outer angle and depth
of the joining point) and positioned periodically at assigned distance. A single unit
wall with separated channels is selected from the simple MCHS and micro channel
with triangular shaped micro mixer (MTM) as the computational domain for the
numerical simulation. The performance both micro channels are compared at
identical boundary conditions. The effect of volume flow rate of the fluid, flow
direction, position of the micro mixer (parallel or alternating), and geometrical
parameters of micro mixer on the flow and heat transfer performance of MTM is
studied. It is found that the performance of MTM varies drastically with variation of
all geometrical parameters. It has to be also highlighted that overall enhancement
factor of MTM improved enormously up to 1.53 times compared to simple MCHS
with slight reduction in friction factor. This binary benefit of MTM makes it highly
possible to be implemented in the practical application.
Keywords: Micro channel heat sink; Micro mixer; Optimum design; Overall
enhancement factor.

Highlights

Micro mixers in triangular shape are introduced between the adjacent

channels.

plot.

Geometrical configurations of micro mixers are improved and presented in 3D

Thermal performance is enhanced with no increment in pressure drop.

Overall enhancement factor increased up to 1.53 times compared to simple

MCHS.

Nomenclature

area (m2)

A1

arrangement 1

A2

arrangement 2

cp

heat capacity (J/kgK)

depth of micro mixer (m)

D1

direction 1

D2

direction 2

Dh

hydraulic diameter (m)

ks

thermal conductivity (W/Km)

mass flow rate (kg/s)

heat transfer coefficient (W/Km2)

thermal conductivity (W/Km)

length of micro channel (mm)

number of micro mixer

improvement factor

Nu

Nusselt number

pressure drop (kPa)

heat flux (W/m2)

temperature (K)

uin

inlet velocity (m/s)

u,v,w velocity vector

x,y,z

Cartesian coordinate

Greek Symbols

density (kg/m3)

inner angle ()

outer angle ()

viscosity (Pas)

Subscripts
f

fluid

in

inlet

mean

ratio

solid

1.

Introduction

Micro channel heat sink (MCHS) appears to be one of the most promising and highly
effective thermal management technologies that is prominently used in a variety
kind of devices especially in electronic cooling. Researchers have given great deal of
interest to investigate the fluid flow and heat transfer in micro channel heat sink
after the pioneering work done by Tuckerman and Pease [1]. Steinke and Kandlikar
[2] proposed that for singlephase liquid flow in micro channel, the classical theory
Stokes and Poiseuille flow is still applicable from their review on existing literature of
experimental data on the friction in microchannels. In another review of heat
transfer in microchannels, Rosa et al. [3] suggested that standard theory and
correlations to describe heat transfer in microchannels but scaling effects has to be
considered critically.
However simple MCHS seems to not be enough for cooling as a result of
tremendous accession of power density and minuscule of electronic packages.
According to Moores Law, the microprocessor transistor count doubles up every two
year and increase the cooling demand of the device to run in operating
temperature. Thus, incentive researches have been conducted to improve the heat
transfer and fluid flow characteristics in MCHS actively and passive to resolve this
issue.
Xu et al. [4, 5] provided three-dimensional numerical simulations of conjugate heat
transfer in a newly proposed interrupted micro channel heat sink. The new silicon
micro channel heat sink consists of parallel longitudinal micro channels and several
transverse micro channels. Cheng [6] numerically studied the flow and heat transfer
in a stacked twolayer micro channels with easy-processing passive microstructures
and found that stacked micro channel has better thermal performance compared to

simple one. Korichi and Oufer [7] studied the flow and thermal performance of a
horizontal channel with obstacles mounted alternatingly on both upper and lower
walls numerically. It was found that a travelling wave generated by the vortex
shedding from the constriction and expansion contributes mainly to heat transfer
enhancement.
Promvonge et al. [8] numerically studied the laminar flow and heat transfer
characteristics in a three-dimensional isothermal wall square channel with 45angled baffles. Sui et al. [9] examined the performance rectangular wavy micro
channels at laminar condition. An enormous thermal enhancement was obtained
due to the secondary flow (Dean Vortices). Foong et al. [10] performed numerical
simulation on the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of a square micro
channel with four longitudinal internal fins and analyzed the effect of the pin height
and flow condition on the performance of micro channels. It was found there is an
optimum pin height to achieve the best performance, Dogan and Sivrioglu [11]
performed experimental study on the mixed convection heat transfer from
longitudinal fins in a horizontal channel with a uniform heat flux at the bottom
surface and found optimum fin that dependent on the fin height and modified
Rayleigh number for heat transfer enhancement . Danish et al. [12] investigated
numerically the thermal-resistance and pumping-power characteristics of MCHS
with a grooved structure optimized the shape using a multi-objective evolutionary
algorithm. Decline in thermal resistance and increment in Nusselt number observed
in a grooved microchannels compared to a smooth MCHS with a small increment of
pumping power.
Liu et al. [13] used CFD (computational fluid dynamics) and LB (lattice Boltzmann)
approaches to the numerical study of forced convection heat transfer occurring in
microchannels. The results implied that the shield shaped groove microchannel
possessed the high heat exchange performance with increment of Nusselt number
about 1.3 times that of plain surface structure. Chai et al. [14] studied the pressure
drop and heat transfer characteristics of the interrupted microchannel heat sink
with rectangular ribs in the transverse micro chambers and analyzed the effects of
dimension and position parameters of rectangular rib on these characteristics.
Xia et al. and Chai et al. [15-17] analyzed the effect of geometric parameters of fanshaped and triangular reentrant cavities on water flow and heat transfer
characteristics in MCHS. Optimal geometric parameter was obtained based on
thermal enhancement factor performance.
In numerical investigation of microchannel heat sink with grooved wall, Abouali and
Baghernezhad [18] found that grooved microchannel with thicker wall and lower
mass flow rate of cooling water has a higher heat dissipation and coefficient of
performance compared to simple microchannel with small wall thickness.
Kuppusamy et al. [19, 20] performed numerical analysis on the thermal and flow
performance of the MCHS with different shapes of grooves on the sidewall of the

MCHS using nanofluid. It was found that thermal enhancement enhanced

significantly compared to simple MCHS using water with negligible pressure loss.
Lee et al. [21] attempted to enhance the performance of copper MCHS by
introducing periodic oblique cuts on the fins of MCHS in order to transform the fluid
flow. This could induce redevelopment of the thermal boundary layer that would
result in significant heat transfer enhancement with negligible pressure drop
penalty. The average Nusselt number increased up to 103%, from 11.3 to 22.9 and
the maximum temperature rise reduced by 12.6C. Kuppusamy et al. [22]
introduced secondary passage in the separating wall of the MCHS and found that
the slanted secondary passage significantly enhanced the Nusselt number of the
MCHS as well the with reduction in pressure drop compared to the simple one.
Therefore, significant overall enhancement is obtained compared to the simple
MCHS
It is clear from the literatures that two substantial techniques to enhance micro
scale heat transfer are vortices generation, thermal boundary layer interruption,
and induce the mainstream separation and mixing. On this basis, the present work
focuses introducing mixer in silicon MCHS that would possibly interrupt the
boundary layer, induce mainstream fluid separation and mixing as well as generate
fluid vortices. The effect of the geometrical parameters of the mixers in MCHS is
analyzed and presented in terms of friction factor, average Nusselt number and
overall enhancement coefficient. The heat transfer enhancement of micro channel
heat sinks with periodic triangular shaped transverse micro mixer (MTM) is
numerically investigated.
2.

Description of the numerical model

A single unit wall with separated channels is chosen to perform the numerical
analysis in order to conserve the computational time. Fig. 1 portrays the schematic
diagram of MTM. Fig. 2 shows the computational domain of MTM together with its
geometrical parameters. A single micro channel has the width of 0.1 mm and the
depth of 0.2 mm and therefore the hydraulic diameter is 0.1333 mm. The total
length, width and height of the channel are 10 mm, 0.3 mm and 0.35 mm
respectively. The parameters of MTM; , and d represents the inner and outer
angle and the depth of meeting point of the two edges of the micro mixer (depth of
micro mixer). The geometrical parameters of the micro mixers are not dependent on
each other. The distance of the two adjacent micro mixers depends on its quantity
where the total distance of the channel is divided equal with the numbers of the
micro mixers and the integer value considered as the pitch between the micro
mixers and the floats are divided equally at entrance and exit of the channel.
3.

Mathematical Foundation

The governing equations that are conservation of mass, momentum, and energy
given as follows:

Continuity equation:
(1)
Momentum equation:
(2)
Energy equation:
(3)
Governing Equation for Solid.
(Solid) (4)
The governing equation stated above is developed with following assumption:
(1)

steady laminar flow and heat transfer,

(2)

properties of the fluid is not dependent on temperature except for viscosity

(3)

no radiation heat transfer,

(4)

no viscous dissipation in fluid,

The governing equations were solved using the finite volume based computational
fluid dynamics (CFD) solver FLUENT 6.3.26. The momentum and energy convective
term are discretized by the second order upwind differencing scheme and the
pressure-velocity decoupling is done with the SIMPLE algorithm. The solutions were
considered to be converged when the normalized residual values were less than
107 for all variables except for the energy equation less than 108.
3.1

Boundary conditions

The thermal and flow boundary conditions are given as follows:

(1)

at the inlet, x = 0 (for D1) and x = 10 (for D2):

uf = uin and Tf = Tin = 293 K for water; for silicon substrate

(2)

at the outlet, x = 10 mm (for D1), x = 0 (for D2):

pf = pout = 1 atm and for water, for silicon substrate

(3)

at the inner wall/fluid surface u = v = w = 0; ;

(4)

y = 0, (symmetry); y = 0.30 mm, (symmetry);

(5)

z = 0, ; z = 0.35 mm, , , n is the local coordinate normal to the wall.

The computational domain is generated using hex-wedge cooper scheme. A grid

independence study is conducted for simple MCHS with single wall and two
channels. For uin = 4m/s and q = 106 W/m2, the deviations of average Nusselt
number using 0.347, 0.465 and 0.667 million grids from that of 1.04 million grids
are 9.53%, 5.32%, 2.01% and 0.34% respectively. Considering the deviation is less
than 0.5%, MCHS with 0.667 million grids is selected for analysis to achieve
desirable accuracy and computational time.
3.2

Calculation of Thermal and Flow Performance

The thermal performance of micro channel heat sink is determined by its Nusselt
number that can be calculated using Eq. (5).
(5)
where , Dh and kf are the average heat convection coefficient, hydraulic diameter
of the channel, and thermal conductivity of the fluid.
The average convective heat coefficient can be calculated as:
(6)
where L is the length of the channel.
The local convective heat transfer coefficient, h(x), can be evaluated using the
following equation:
(7)
Tw(x,y,z) is the local wall temperature and Tm(x) is local fluid bulk-mean
temperature given by:
(8)
The friction factor can be calculated as follows:
(9)
where p and um is the pressure drop and mean velocity.
In order to evaluate the increment ratio compared to simple MCHS. The increment
ratio of friction factor, Nusselt number and improvement factor are calculated as: ,
and respectively.
4.

Results and Discussion

4.1 Verification of numerical model

Numerical that consist of a single wall and two channels with half of the actual
channel width is selected for the present study. This numerical model is compared
with a single micro channel and two walls with identical geometries and both of
these models are validated with existing analytical equations as shown in Fig. 3. The
Nusselt number and frictional factor at various Reynolds number matched well with
analytical equation [23] for similar boundary conditions (uin=4m/s, q=106W/m2).

4.2 Effect of micro mixer orientation, cooling fluid volume flow rate and its flow
direction.
Micro mixers are designed in two orientation of in order to predict the effect of flow
pattern in MTM; parallel and alternating. The volume flow rate of the cooling fluid is
studied from G = 4 to 10 10-7 m3/s with different inlet direction; D1 and D2. The
boundary conditions associated with different flow direction are explained in Section
3.1. The arrangement of the micro mixer is defined as A1 and A2 for alternating and
parallel arrangement respectively. Fig. 4 shows the schematic diagram of the flow
arrangement and the flow direction. It can be seen that the micro mixer is
converging with the flow direction in D1 and diverging in D1. A1 provides
alternating flow between one to another channel whereas flow diverts consistently
into only channel in A2. Heat flux of 1.2 106 W/m2 is supplied at the bottom
surface of the silicon substrate. Both the inner () and outer angle () are
constrained at 30. The numbers of the micro mixers between channels are fixed at
6.
4.2.1 Heat Transfer characteristic
The evaluation of the thermal characteristic is performed based on the Nusselt
number since heat transfer through advection is dominant. The propensity of Nuavg
and Nur with increment of G at different flow direction and micro mixer arrangement
is shown in Fig. 5. It is observed that Nuavg of MTM is outstandingly higher
compared to simple MCHS. Nuavg increases drastically with increment of G for both
micro mixer arrangement and flow direction with greater rising extent compared to
simple MCHS. A very trivial difference is found between D1 and D2 at G=410-7
m3/s for both arrangement. The flow direction doesnt seem to affect the thermal of
MTM for both arrangements at the lower flow rate. This trend prolonged for A1 until
G= 5 10-7 m3/s where Nuavg in both direction lie at the same point and gradually
disperses after that. In Direction 2, Nuavg begins to rise with larger accretion
compared to Direction 1 in both arrangements as G passes 5 10-7m3/s.
Arrangement A1 exhibits higher Nuavg for both flow direction until G<610-7 m3/s.
However, ascend of A2 becomes more precipitous and outperforms others at
G=1010-7 m3/s

The trend of Nur is presented in 3D surface in Fig. 5b in order to provide clearer

perception of variation in Nur at different flow rate, flow direction and micro mixer
arrangement. Generally, a gradual increment is observed in Nur for all configuration
and D2, A1 reaches to the peak value at G=1010-7 m3/s. Higher heat transfer can
be achieved in a diverging micro mixer because of the reverse pressure gradient
micro mixer encourage the fluid to enter the micro mixer and spool up into vortices
before exiting that improve the convection heat transfer. Aside of that, alternating
flow orientation enhance the flow oscillations that too signifies the heat transfer.
4.2.2 Friction factor characteristic
It is known that reduces with increment in flow rate. As expected, in Fig. 6,
reduce gradually for both MTM and simple MCHS as G increases from 4 to 1010-7
m3/s. Ironically, of simple MCHS is higher compared all MTM at 410-7<G<510-7
m3/s. However, since descend degree of in simple micro channel is large
compared to MTM, it overlie all MTM except D2, A2 at G=710-7 m3/s. Since of
D2, A2 is much lower compared to other, simple MCHS only overlaps it at G=9107 m3/s. It is found that flow direction has negligible effect on for A2 for all given
flow direction and eventually had the least value of at G=910-7.
In Fig. 6, the 3D surface plot shows that r increases gradually with G. r of A2, D2
is found expressively smaller compared to others and it meet lowest point at G=4
10-7. Apical point of r is observed at A2, D1 at G=10 10-7. The fluid flow in
micro mixer in alternating direction has better performance compared to parallel
direction. This is because in parallel direction, the cooling fluid is repeatedly forced
into one channel while the other channel discharge the cooling fluid from the
mainstream continuously that results in pressure built up. On the other side, the
convergent micro mixers with flow direction have smaller outlet than inlet that
impedes the flow and deteriorates the pressure drop. Diverging micro mixers with
flow direction at alternating position demonstrates the least pressure loss and
overlap simple MCHS at G=9 10-7.
Water from the main stream channel slips over the micro mixer ensues less friction
factor compared simple channel at lower flow rate especially in Direction 2.
Nevertheless, this effect fades as the flow rate increases. The secondary flow
regime from the micro mixer interrupts the main stream flow the increases the
pressure loss of MTM as the flow rate increases.
4.2.3 Overall Enhancement
It is a general fact that increment of Nuavg always accompanied by additional
pressure drop. The compensation of Nur with r is verified based on overall
enhancement r. The 3D surface plot shows that Nur intensifies progressively with
increment of G as shown in Fig. 7.

As the G increases, the improvement of r for respective micro mixer arrangement

and flow direction starts to increase at different acclivity. The most significant
improvement observed among a MTM is for A2, D1 where r increases from lowest
among the MTM to the highest. In terms of sensitivity of flow direction on the micro
mixer arrangement, A2 is more responsive to the flow direction where larger
difference is observed between the flow directions at higher G.
Drastically improved of r at A1, D2 from G = 4 to 10 10-7 m3/s. This followed by
A2, D2 where with slightly lower r for a given G. It should be noted that the
variation of Nur for both A1, D2 and A2, D2 with G are almost same but r of A1, D2
was significantly lower compared to A2, D2. This fact leads to significant
improvement of r at A1, D2.
It is a common fact that with increase of flow rate, the magnitude of vortex
enhances and the thermal boundary layer in the constant cross-sectional area
shrinks. Inclusion of micro mixers in MCHS signifies this effect as vortices are
formed in it. The cooling fluid temperature in the center of vortex region is higher
compared to the surrounding vicinity. Fig. 8 portrays the pressure contour plots and
isotherms of micro mixer at A1, D2 at G = 9 10-7 m3/s and A2, D1 from G = 4
10-7 m3/s. While former has a large fluid vortex, the latter has two vortices that are
comparatively smaller where each of them swirls at opposing direction. These
inimical whirlpools are formed owing to the repetitive diversion of the mainstream
fluid into the same channel (upper channel) that makes it very repulsive. It can be
observed in Fig.8b that pressure at end of latter mainstream, the pressure at upper
channel is much lower compared lower channel unlike in former channel, the exit
pressure of both mainstreams are almost same. Thus, the fluid in micro mixer is
deterred from entering the channel and it circulates at different stationary focal
point in opposing direction continuously. Unfortunately, such adverse fluid
circulation impeded the heat transfer and increased the pressure seriously. A very
high temperature is observed in this proximity and this can seriously deteriorates
the heat transfer.
4.3

Effect of inner angle and outer angle of the micro mixer.

Effect of variation in the inner angle and outer angle on the thermal and flow
characteristic is studied. These two parameters determine the shape of the micro
mixer. Even though the highest performance is obtained from A1, D1 from the
previous analysis, it had higher friction factor compared to the simple at G = 9
10-7 m3/s. Since the objective of the study is to attain thermal enhancement
without additional pressure loss, configuration D2, A2is selected at G = 9 10-7,
for this analysis. The width of the micro mixer and numbers micro mixers are fixed
at 10 m and 6 respectively.
4.3.1 Heat Transfer characteristic

Nuavg increase greatly with increment of for all as shown Fig. 8a. While having
the baseline value of simple MCHS at Nuavg= 10.08, a noticeable relation is also
observed and . For a given , Nuavg accretes with . Indeed, the accession
progression of with has also improved at =30.
Micro mixer =50, =30 exhibits a very poor heat transfer by cause of its sharp
diversion angle and confined area. Thus, only a small amount of fluid from the main
stream channel redirect into the micro mixer. Aside of that, there is no fluid
circulation observed in the micro mixer and the cooling fluid directly flow towards
the lower main stream channel. It also observed that the micro mixer environed
with very high fluid temperature. This suggests that poor fluid mixing in that region
consequently lowered the thermal enhancement.
As 50 and 30, the convective heat transfer progressively improved as
illustrated in Fig. 8b. Besides the changes in the shape, the size of the micro mixer
also enlarged. This has encouraged more fluid to imping into the micro mixer and
engendered more vortices that consequently improved the fluid mixing and shorten
the thermal boundary layer.
Laminar stagnation has built up in fringe of the mainstream and the micro mixer
outlet due to the sudden reduction cooling fluid velocity as flow from these two
regime consolidates. This laminar stagnation zone has slightly hampers the heat
transfer. In spite of this impediment, the overall heat transfer improved due to
several factors (1) multiple fluid recirculation; (2) redevelopments of boundary
layer; and (3) enlargement in the heat transfer area at solid- fluid interface.
Enormous heat transfer intensification due to these factors has compensated the
minor heat transfer deterioration that happened at the pressure stagnation.
4.3.2 Friction factor characteristic
A tremendous reduction in is observed with decline of especially for =30 as
portrayed in Fig. 9. The escalate amplitude of varies depending on where; as
reduces, the reduction of becomes more vigorous with increment of . For
instance, for =30, crosses the simple MCHS with only a small increment of
(<30) since the descent scope is very large. This followed by =40 at 40 < <
50. Whereas for =50, remains compared to of simple MCHS for all values of .
From trend of , it can be inferred that increment in the inner angle and reduction in
the outer angle reduces greatly.
Reduction of provide smaller diversion angle and ease cooling fluid to impinge
from the mainstream channel to mixer section. Likewise, increment of results in
inverse pressure that also to invades the fluid into the micro mixer section. Besides,
the micro mixer area enlarged and fluid in mainstream channel slips over this area.
The velocity of fluid decreases and it redirects at brink of the micro mixer exit and
mainstream channel because of the wall stagnation and viscosity of fluid. This
results in a bigger area of laminar stagnation area in this section that also helps the

fluid to slip over this region. These are the two major reasons of significant
reduction in friction factor in this analysis.
4.3.3 Overall Enhancement
For comparison of tendency of r and Nur, the variation of r with is plotted at
different . While in one hand, the variation of is recedes drastically with , on
the other hand, Nuavg improved considerably, an appreciable improvement is
noticed in r. As shown in Fig. 10, the proclivity is very much similar to Nur but at
greater ratio proportion due to the reason mentioned above.
Fig.11 shows that the angle of micro mixer is very steep and the size is very
slender. Therefore, only partial amount of fluid enter this region and directly flow
towards the lower main stream channel. No fluid recirculation is observed due to
the limited space. As 50 and 30, the micro mixer becomes sharper in its
shape and therefore, the pressure gradient becomes much larger. Besides, the
micro mixer size is also enlarged and consequently increases the solid-fluid
interface area. This let the convection heat transfer in the micro mixer increase
immensely. As more fluid enters the micro mixer, multiple vortices are generated
with high intensity due to the reverse pressure difference across it.
Isotherms in Fig. 11b shows that higher cooling fluid temperature in core of the
vortices in =50, =50 implies that greater heat transfer happens in this micro
mixer. The fluid pressure in the same locality, nevertheless is lower compared to the
neighboring region.
The pressure plot in the micro mixer =50, =50 shows that pressure stagnation
formed at the adjoining point of the micro mixer and lower main stream channel. A
low pressure area is typically formed at the area flow split from the mainstream
region and the high pressure area (pressure stagnation) is normally built when fluid
merge from different directions.

4.4

Effect of depth d and number n of the micro mixer.

Variation in thermal and flow performance with increment in depth (d) and numbers
(n) of micro mixer in the micro channel heat sink is analyzed. The analysis is
performed by maintaining and at 50 and 30 respectively in micro mixer
A1,D2 at G = 9 10-7 m3/s. The range analysis performed is from 0.1 to 0.2 m
and 6 to 10 in for d and n respectively. It has to be underlined that, varying of d
direct affect the size of the micro mixer and combination of d and n will determine
the sectional length of the of constant segment of MTM.
4.4.1 Heat Transfer characteristic

Fig. 12(a) displays that Nuavg increased progressively with increment of d. Besides
that, a visible increment is observed in the variation of n. However, smaller
increment is observed at 8<n<10 compared 6<n<10. This trend suggests that
increment of numbers of micro mixer has reached to its maximum potential to
enhance the thermal performance. Two possible reasons can propose for the
reduced in the ascent scope: (1) the thermal boundary layer has shrunken
sufficiently; (2) the breadth of vortex begins to increase rather than its quantity.
Further increment d and n would probably not improve the heat transfer or
deteriorate the thermal performance in worst case. Nur reached to its peak at d=0.2
and n=10 as corollary from increment and reduction of d and n as portrayed in Fig.
12(b). This trend makes sense as increment of size of the micro mixer would provide
larger area in micro mixer that consequently enhance the fluid diversion from the
main stream flow region and its mixing in the micro mixer. Similarly, increment of
numbers of micro mixer also results in more fluid quivering and mixing. Aside of
that, repetitive boundary layer development in constant cross sectional area also
improves the thermal enhancement.
As discussed earlier, the significance of the forced convection is dependent of fluid
recirculation it is directly affected the size and intensity of vortices. Enlargement of
the micro mixer augments the peripheral area of vortex that increases the size of
vortex and eventually improves the fluid mixing in the bulk flow. As d and n
increase, the numbers of vortex amplified and the thermal boundary development
shortened that impede the heat transfer rate. The fluid oscillation, concurrently
outweigh heat transfer rate drawback over the shorter length of total constant
cross-sectional area.
4.4.2 Friction factor characteristic
Opposing trend is seen in compared to Nuavg in Fig. 13(a). A drastic reduction is
observed with increment of d. Increment of n also reduced the friction factor of MTM
even though the tendency of the reduction is found inconsistent. Based on this
phenomenon, it is found in Fig. 13(b) that combined effect of d and n weighted
based the simple MCHS had a peak value at d=0.1 and n=6 and lowest point at
d=0.2 m and n=10. It can be inferred that larger area between the micro mixer
and the mainstream flow could reduce the flow friction. This could happen possibly
due slip fluid flow over the micro mixer area. Aside of that, the velocity of cooling
fluid abates and the redirects due to the wall stagnation, fluid viscosity and fluid
association from mainstream region and micro mixers. Consequently, a large
stagnation area is formed in this section that enables the fluid to slip over it and
diminishes the friction factor.

4.4.3 Overall Enhancement

In previous sections, it can is observed that increment of d and n has multiplied the
benefits of MTM by increasing the Nuavg as well as reducing . This has result in
tremendous improvement in r. As d0.2 m and n10, r increased up to 1.53 as
shown in Fig. 15.
The detailed study of the flow and thermal field in Fig. 16 shows that multiple
vortices are developed in both micro mixers. In virtue of large impinging area, the
fluid flows into the micro mixer and then whirls up creating recirculation due to
converse pressure difference across the micro mixer. It has also noted that, the
laminar pressure stagnation at verge of main stream and the micro mixer outlet
becomes larger with increment of d and n. The streamlines, temperature and
pressure plot for both micro mixers (d=0.2m, n=10 and d=0.1m, n=10) are
observed to be similar (except for numbers and size of vortices).
The isotherms shows the cooling fluid temperature is much higher in MTM with
d=0.2m and n=10 that suggest higher heat transfer compared to d=0.1m and
n=6. Even though vortices are observed in both micro mixers, more vortices is seen
in the former at larger size in three different position; one at the entry section and
two at the exit section. Higher temperature is observed in the focal vicinity of the
vortices as in previous analysis. The cooling fluid pressure in the same locale, on the
other hand, is lower compared to the neighboring region. Thus, it can be reckoned
that the more vortices are generated, the greater heat absorption induced in the
micro mixer.
As mentioned above, increment of d directly reflects increment of the size of micro
mixers. The significance of the forced convection is dependent on fluid recirculation
and it is directly affected by the size and intensity of vortices. Enlargement of the
micro mixer augments the peripheral area of vortex that increases the quantity and
size of vortices. Increase of n the also increased the number of vortices and these
eventually improves the fluid mixing in the bulk flow tremendously. Besides the size
and numbers of vortices, the solid-fluid interface area and repetitive development of
boundary layer also increase as corollary of increment of d and n. Increase of d and
n might shorten the thermal boundary development that could impede the heat
transfer rate. The fluid oscillation, concurrently outweigh heat transfer rate
drawback against the shorter entire length of constant. Excessive increase of d
could shorten the step-wise constant cross-sectional length that would impede the
thermal boundary layer redevelopment and reduce the intensity of the vortices as
mentioned previously. It can be inferred that moderate increase of d and n can
improve heat transfer, but if done overly, the thermal performance is deteriorated.
5.

Conclusion

A newly designed micro channel heat sink with micro mixer (MTM) is proposed in
the present study. The primary objective this numerical study is to obtain the
appropriate flow rate, micro mixer angle and its size in order to achieve highest

thermal enhancement possible without additional pressure drop. From the data
obtained in the study, it can be deduced that there is an optimum flow rate,
appropriate flow direction and micro mixer arrangement to achieve thermal
enhancement without additional pressure loss that. The optimum volume flow rate
is at 9 10-7 m3/s. In fact, the pressure loss of MTM is slightly lesser compared to
the simple MCHS. Besides, reduction of the outer angle and increment of the inner
angle of micro mixer also enhances thermal enhancement and reduces the pressure
loss significantly. Increment in number of micro mixer and enlargement of its depth
improve the performance of the MTM as well. In virtue of repetitive alternating flow,
large and intense vortices are generated in the micro mixer. Besides, the thermal
boundary layer is shortened and thickened. Therefore, thermal performance of MTM
intensified exceptionally. The slip of main stream flow over the micro mixer and
laminar stagnation zone are the prime reason of drastic reduction of friction factor
in MTM. Ultimately, the overall performance has escalated tremendously by virtue
of these reasons.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the Ministry of Higher Education of
Malaysia and the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the financial
support under the project UM.C/HIR/MOHE/ENG/40.
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