EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS ON F LUID F LOW C HARACTERISTICS OF S INGLE P HASE L IQUID F LOW THROUGH CIRCULAR MICROCHANNELS

Microchannels which are light in weight, smaller in size , handle low amount of coolants and provide higher surface area to volume ratio give higher heat transfer coefficients are efficient cooling devices for various modern electronic systems where higher heat fluxes are encountered . In this connection a n experi mental investigation has been carried out on the laminar flow and convective heat transfer of de ionized water in circular microchannels. To explore the the validity of classical correlations of friction factor based on conventional sized channels for predi cting the fluid behavior of single phase liquid flow of water through circular microchannels experiments were conducted with de i onized water with Reynolds number ranging from 7 1 to 149 5 . The copper microchannels used in the experiment have the hydraulic diameter of 279 μm and 45 mm length. Pressure drop and flow rates were measured to analyze the flow characteristics. The results show good agreement between the classical correlations of friction factor and the ex perimentally measured data