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In order to scrutinize the coolant mass distribution and its effect to the heat transfer in oblique fin microchannel array, extensive numerical studies are performed on planar oblique fin configuration. Full-domain simulations using common-flow down (CFD) approach are employed to provide better insights into the flow distribution, flow stability, and heat transfer performance at a global level. The flow field and temperature profile analysis shows that nonuniform coolant distribution and coolant migration occur in the oblique fin microchannel, and the heat transfer performance for both edges of the heat sink is affected due to changing secondary flow rate. However, the flow migration does not affect the local coolant velocity and temperature profiles significantly in the middle region (0.2 < Z′ < 0.8). Meanwhile, it is also found that Reynolds number affects the coolant migration, the stability of the fluid flow, and heat transfer performance significantly. Higher Reynolds number increases the percentage of secondary flow rate and, hence, enhances the heat transfer for fin surfaces in secondary channels.

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In this paper, a simplified ‘effective circuit’ fluid flow model is proposed to complement full-domain (geometry based) simulations of fluid flow in novel discrete oblique fin heat sinks. In the proposed model, the discrete flow paths are modeled as effective resistances, and the intersections between discrete flow paths are modeled as ‘nodes’. In an electrical circuit, the current of each branch can be derived from the current division rule, and hence the actual flow rates in the effective circuit are determined by the effective resistances. Simulink R2011b, a graphical extension to MATLAB for modeling and simulation of systems, is chosen to construct the equivalent circuit. The effective resistances are calculated using the well-known friction factor expressions for laminar flow in micro-channels. A full-domain geometry-based simulation is performed on CFX 14.0 serving as a benchmark for the developed ‘effective circuit’ fluid flow model. The results show that for a given total current value and mass flow rate, the difference of pressure drop over the whole heat sink between the simplified flow model and CFX simulation is within 13%. The mass flow distributions obtained from the simplified flow model and the CFX simulation exhibit a common distribution pattern. Interestingly, the simplified flow model is even able to capture flow migration — a distinctive phenomenon of flow in oblique fin geometries. We thus confirm the feasibility of the method of construction of our simplified ‘effective circuit’ fluid flow model.

A novel cylindrical oblique fin minichannel heat sink was proposed to cool cylindrical heat sources using forced convection scheme. In this paper, parametric numerical study was employed to understand the importance of the various dimensions of the oblique fin heat sinks and their heat transfer performance and pressure drop. Three dimensional conjugated heat transfer simulations were carried out using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method based on laminar flow to determine its performance in the oblique fin heat sink. 214 parametric studies were performed by varying the oblique angle from 20° to 45°, secondary channel gap from 1mm to 5mm and Reynolds number from 200 to 900. Their thermal performance was compared for a constant heat flux of 1 W/cm2. The results show that the flow is main channel directed in shorter secondary channel structure while the flow becomes secondary channel directed in longer secondary channel structure. Secondary flow becomes more effective in heat transfer when increasing the secondary channel gap. When the oblique angle increases, more flow will be diverted into secondary channel and improve flow mixing to enhance the heat transfer. The best configuration in this paper was suggested based on the numerical data point. The overall performance can be improved up to 110% at Reynolds number of 900 compared with conventional straight fin minichannel. Therefore, this is the attractive candidate for future cylindrical heat sinks.