Heat Transfer Enhancement in Serpentine Mini-Channel Heat Sink by Wavy Side Walls and CuO Nanofluid

Abstract

In the present study, a novel geometry of a serpentine mini-channel heat sink with wavy channel side walls is introduced. The results show that the use of wave-shaped channel walls can increase the Nusselt number and pressure drop by an average of 67.33% and 157.37%, respectively, when pure water is used as a cooling fluid. Adding CuO nanoparticles with 4% concentration makes an improvement of 15.34% in Nusselt number in simple mini-channel compared to pure water, on average. This value for wavy mini-channel is about 93% compared to simple mini-channel with pure water. The thermal performance factor is calculated to consider simultaneously the effect of the Nusselt number and pressure drop. The results indicated that the best hydro-thermal performance belongs to the serpentine mini-channel heat sink with the wavy side walls channel in volume fraction of 4%. which is about 44.2% better than the serpentine mini-channel heat sink with simple side walls and pure water.