Description

Thermal transport in microchannels is investigated to
better understand the fundamentals of single-phase
convection and flow boiling at the microscale.
Measurements of single-phase pressure drop and heat
transfer suggest that conventional Navier-Stokes
theory and carefully selected correlations developed
at larger scales are entirely capable of predicting
single-phase transport
characteristics in the microchannels. Both
computational fluid dynamics analysis and approximate
analytical models are then presented to study the
microscale convection-conduction conjugate problem
and to aid in the practical design and optimization
of microchannel heat sinks. Convective flow boiling
in microchannels is also experimentally
characterized. Analytical models are developed to
predict the onset of nucleate boiling and convective
boiling heat transfer coefficients in microchannels
over a wide range of flow conditions. In addition, a
non-intrusive diagnostic technique, infrared
micro-particle image velocimetry, is developed to
facilitate the measurement of flow fields within
silicon-based MEMS devices with micron-scale resolution.