Investigation of Heat Transfer Enhancement Techniques in Microchannel Heat Sinks

The present work reviews the extensive literature concerning heat transfer enhancement techniques for microchannel heat sinks for improved thermal performance in high density power electronics applications. This paper will discuss and analyze passive and active techniques with an employment of surface modification, enlarged surface area, oscillating flow, incorporating PCMs and by utilizing the EHD technology. The outcome of the experiment show that enhancement of EHD provides the biggest heat transfer coefficient and substantial increase in heat rejection capability. But they also cause a greater pressure drop, in this case illustrating the common trend of thermal performance and system efficiency. One can also use extended surfaces and phase change material to realize minimal thermal resistance while at the same time controlling for the pressure drop. This paper offers a comparison of these methods, while stressing that the selection of enhancement procedure should he based on the function or application at hand. The results can be considered useful for better understanding of microchannel heat sink performance characteristics and contribute substantially to electronic cooling and heat rejection applications. Areas for future work include the identification of new enhancement types that can be used in microchannel heat sink designs as well as the study of different enhancement techniques to develop the best performing and most efficient design.