Liquid Single-Phase Flow in an Array of Micro-Pin-Fins—Part I: Heat Transfer Characteristics

This is Paper I of a two-part study concerning thermal and hydrodynamic characteristics of liquid single-phase flow in an array of micro-pin-fins. This paper reports the heat transfer results of the study. An array of 1950 staggered square micro-pin-fins with 200×200 μm2 cross-section by 670 μm height were fabricated into a copper test section. De-ionized water was used as the cooling liquid. Two coolant inlet temperatures of 30°C and 60°C and six maximum mass velocities for each inlet temperature ranging from 183 to 420 kg/m2 s were tested. The corresponding inlet Reynolds number ranged from 45.9 to 179.6. General characteristics of average and local heat transfer were described. Six previous conventional long and intermediate pin-fin correlations and two micro-pin-fin correlations were examined and were found to overpredict the average Nusselt number data. Two new heat transfer correlations were proposed for the average heat transfer based on the present data, in which the average Nusselt number is correlated with the average Reynolds number by power law. Values of the exponent m of the Reynolds number for the two new correlations are fairly close to those for the two previous micro-pin-fin correlations but substantially higher than those for the previous conventional pin-fin correlations, indicating a stronger dependence of the Nusselt number on the Reynolds number in micro-pin-fin arrays. The correlations developed for the average Nusselt number can adequately predict the local Nusselt number data.