TY - JOUR
TI - Numerical study of longitudinal vortex and chaotic flow on heat transfer characteristic in microchannels
AU - Zhu Jincai
AU - Yuan Ding
AU - Sun Fan
AU - Hu Yan’e
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2024
VL - 28
IS - 6
SP - 4805
EP - 4814
PT - Article
AB - In this study, the flow characteristics and heat transfer mechanism of the chaotic flow induced by a micro-channel containing staggered herringbone micro-structures (CM), longitudinal vortex induced by a micro-channel containing inclined ribs (SLM), and a smooth micro-channel (SM) were comprehensively analyzed through numerical simulations at Reynolds number of 164 to 965. The results demonstrated that the primary enhanced heat transfer mechanism of the single longitudinal vortex was the disruption of the thermal boundary-layer, whereas the chaotic flow enhanced heat transfer by facilitating fluid mixing. Furthermore, the longitudinal vortex decay is slower than that of the chaotic flow, resulting in SLM having a superior heat transfer performance at lower pressure drops compared with the CM. Further results showed that the SLM had the highest Nusselt number (Nu = 28), the best comprehensive evaluation factor (PEC = 2.1), and the lowest thermal resistance (RT = 0.6 K/W).