Numerical investigation of flow and heat transfer in microchannels

Mini and microchannel applications have become an important and attractive research area during the past decades. For micro systems design purposes, numerical and experimental studies have been conducted on flow and heat transfer characteristics of mini and microchannels and various friction factor and Nusselt number correlations have been proposed. Some researchers have tried to apply conventional tube correlations to mini and micro channels, rather than deriving new correlations. In this study, using commercial CFD software, flow and heat transfer characteristics in laminar and turbulent flow through circular channels are analyzed numerically. The applicability of conventional correlations in calculating the friction factor and Nusselt number is investigated. It is concluded that, in laminar regime conventional correlations can be used to calculate the friction factor for the channel sizes considered. In turbulent regime, however, numerical results for friction factor yielded greater values than those calculated by the conventional correlations. Numerical Nusselt numbers are found to be closer to the conventional values in laminar and turbulent regimes. In turbulent regime, on the other hand, Nusselt number values calculated with the microchannel correlations are determined to be greater than the numerical results and the values calculated with the conventional correlations.