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The present study investigates the effect of cross-links on flow boiling heat transfer characteristics in rectangular microchannel heat sinks, using FC-72 as the working fluid. The silicon test section consists of 45 cross-linked microchannels, measuring 16 mm in length, with a hydraulic diameter of 248 μm. The parameters investigated include mass flux, heat flux, and exit quality, ranging from 99–275 kg/m2 s, 7.2–88.8 kW/m2 , and 0.01–0.71, respectively. Thermochromatic liquid crystals have been used in the present study as full-field surface temperature sensors to map the temperature distribution on the heat sink surface. The flow boiling heat transfer coefficient shows a different trend in the cross-linked design relative to the straight microchannel design. The flow boiling heat transfer coefficient increases with increasing exit quality at a constant mass flux, which is caused by the domination of the nucleation boiling mechanism in the cross-link region. The predictions obtained from the existing heat transfer correlations found in the literature significantly under-estimate the present heat transfer measurements, except for the Yu et al. (2002) correlation.Copyright © 2009 by ASME

The present study focuses on the experimental investigation of boiling heat transfer characteristics and pressure drop in a silicon microchannel heat sink. The microchannel heat sink consists of a rectangular silicon chip in which 45 rectangular microchannels were chemically etched with a depth of 295 μm, width of 254 μm, and a length of 16 mm. Un-encapsulated Thermochromic liquid Crystals (TLC) are used in the present work to enable nonintrusive and high spatial resolution temperature measurements. This measuring technique is used to provide accurate full and local surface-temperature and heat transfer coefficient measurements. Experiments are carried out for mass velocities ranging between 290 to 457 kg/m2 .s and heat fluxes from 6.04 to 13.06 W/cm2 using FC-72 as the working fluid. Experimental results show that the pressure drop increases as the exit quality and the flow rate increase. High values of heat transfer coefficient can be obtained at low exit quality (xe < 0.2). However, the heat transfer coefficient decreases sharply and remains almost constant as the quality increases for an exit quality higher than 0.2.Copyright © 2008 by ASME