This study proposes the use of symmetrical ogive-shaped ribs on the walls of microchannel heat sinks (MCHS) to improve their thermal performance with minimal pressure drop. The ribs are arranged in three different configurations: ribs attached to all channel walls (MC-SAWR), ribs attached to side channel walls (MC-SSWR), and ribs attached to the bottom channel wall (MC-SBWR). Numerical investigations are conducted using the laminar conjugate heat transfer model to study the flow and heat transfer characteristics of the MCHS. The augmentation entropy generation number and thermal enhancement factor criterion are used to quantify the overall hydrothermal performance of the MCHS. The results show that the inclusion of symmetrical ogive-shaped ribs improves the Nusselt number of MCHS. The MC-SAWR configuration shows the highest Nusselt number improvement of 13–50% compared to the smooth MCHS over the Reynolds number range of 100–1000. Additionally, the MC-SAWR configuration shows a maximum reduction of 58% in the total entropy generation rate as it has the smallest augmentation entropy generation number value of 0.42. In terms of the thermal enhancement factor criterion, the MC-SSWR configuration shows the highest performance at Reynolds numbers below 400, but the MC-SAWR configuration outperformed the MC-SSWR configuration at Reynolds numbers above 400. Therefore, the MC-SAWR configuration is the best configuration that provides high cooling performance.

Traditional cooling technologies are now become inadequate for electronic chips cooling due to size reduction and increase in generated heat flux. Microchannel heat sink (MCHS) is promising candidate due to its superior cooling performance than its competitors. The aim of this study is to investigate the hydrothermal performance of MCHS with novel trefoil shape ribs. The three configurations of trefoil shape ribs are: MC-AWTR (all wall trefoil ribs), MC-SWTR (side wall trefoil ribs), and MC-BWTR (base wall trefoil ribs). The performance of microchannel is evaluated on the basis of thermal enhancement factor, thermal resistance, transport efficiency and entropy generation at Re=100-1000. The results predict that addition of trefoil ribs to walls of smooth microchannel significantly improve its thermal performance at cost of pressure penalty. Nusselt number and average heat transfer coefficient tends to increase with rise in Reynolds number while thermal resistance and entropy generation reduces. Highest pressure drop occurs for MC-AWTR configuration due to more obstruction of the fluid flow. MC-SWTR configuration has highest thermal enhancement factor among all configurations while MC-AWTR has lowest due to large pressure drop penalty at all Reynold number. So, overall MC-SWTR shows superior performance than any other considered trefoil rib configuration.

The microchannel heat sink (MCHS) is a robust cooling technique that ensures the efficiency and reliability of compact electronic devices by dissipating a large amount of heat because of its high surface area-to-volume ratio. This study proposes a novel modification of the pin-fins geometry in MCHS, and geometric optimization using response surface methodology (RSM) to build a low thermal resistant MCHS with enhanced heat transfer efficiency with low-pressure drop. Three dimensional numerical simulations using ANSYS FLUENT 2021 R2 are performed on three pin-fins configurations, i.e., MC-BW (pins mounted transversely to the bottom wall), MC-SW (pins mounted transversely to the side wall), and MC-Mixed (pins mounted transversely to the bottom and side wall). The thermal and flow characteristics are investigated using a laminar conjugate heat transfer model at Reynolds numbers 100–1000. Results show that introducing pin-fins significantly enhances heat dissipation as it continuously breaks the boundary layer and generates flow separation downstream of the pin-fins, which enhances fluid mixing and increases heat transfer augmentation inside MCHS. Among different configurations, the MC-Mixed gives the highest improvement of 50% in the convective heat transfer coefficient at Re = 1000. The highest thermal enhancement factor of η = 1.4 is obtained for the MC-Mixed configuration at Re = 600. For the base wall pin fin configuration RSM yields optimized values of 2.50 mm, 0.25 mm, and 0.045 mm for transverse pitch, longitudinal pitch, and diameter of pin respectively, and for the mixed pin fin configuration it gives 1.0 mm, 0.150 mm, 0.035 mm and 1.250 mm values for transverse pitch, longitudinal pitch, diameter of pin and pitch of side wall pins respectively for the maximum heat transfer and minimum pressure drop.

In this study, 3D numerical conjugate heat transfer modeling is used to investigate the thermal and hydraulic characteristics of the microchannel heat sink (MCHS) with different configurations of novel ogive shape ribs on channel walls. It was found that new proposed MCHS configurations with ogive ribs have a high Nusselt number as compared to the smooth MCHS because ogive ribs enhance the heat dissipation between channel walls and fluid by continuously interrupting the thermal boundary layer development. MCHS configuration with ogive ribs mounted on bottom wall improves the Nusselt number of smooth MCHS by 1.13–1.87 times, while MCHS with ogive ribs mounted on both side walls and MCHS with ogive ribs mounted on bottom channel wall improve Nusselt number by 1.12–1.70 and 1.08–1.59 times, respectively, at Re 100–1000. In terms of thermal enhancement factor criterion, the MCHS with ogive ribs on side walls shows superior performance at Re 100–300 and has the highest thermal enhancement factor. While MCHS with ogive ribs on bottom wall outperformed other configurations in terms of thermal enhancement factor at Reynold number > 300. A maximum thermal enhancement factor of 1.42 is reported for MCHS with bottom wall ribs ogive at Re = 1000.