Experimental Investigation of Heat Transfer Characteristics in Stepped Rectangular Micro-Channels

Experimental investigation was conducted to explore the heat transfer behaviour of stepped rectangular microchannels in laminar-single phase flow. The classical correlations used for predicting the heat transfer behaviour in single phase flow in rectangular microchannels was extended to predict the same in stepped rectangular microchannels and its applicability was verified. The microchannel considered had a hydraulic diameter of 454 microns. The test piece was made of aluminium and contained ten channels in parallel. Deionized water was used for the experimentation and the Reynolds number was varied from 300 to 1500. The results indicated considerable concurrence between the experimental results and the Choi correlation for Reynolds numbers less than 800.