Nanofluids have been proposed to improve the performance of microchannel heat sinks. In this paper, we present a systematic characterization of aqueous silica nanoparticle suspensions with concentrations up to . We determined the particle morphology by transmission electron microscope imaging and its dispersion status by dynamic light scattering measurements. The thermophysical properties of the fluids, namely, their specific heat, density, thermal conductivity, and dynamic viscosity were experimentally measured. We fabricated microchannel heat sinks with three different channel widths and characterized their thermal performance as a function of volumetric flow rate for silica nanofluids at concentrations by volume of 0%, 5%, 16%, and 31%. The Nusselt number was extracted from the experimental results and compared with the theoretical predictions considering the change of fluids bulk properties. We demonstrated a deviation of less than 10% between the experiments and the predictions. Hence, standard correlations can be used to estimate the convective heat transfer of nanofluids. In addition, we applied a one-dimensional model of the heat sink, validated by the experiments. We predicted the potential of nanofluids to increase the performance of microchannel heat sinks. To this end, we varied the individual thermophysical properties of the coolant and studied their impact on the heat sink performance. We demonstrated that the relative thermal conductivity enhancement must be larger than the relative viscosity increase in order to gain a sizeable performance benefit. Furthermore, we showed that it would be preferable to increase the volumetric heat capacity of the fluid instead of increasing its thermal conductivity.
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e-mail: dimos.poulikakos@ethz.ch
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Research Papers
On the Cooling of Electronics With Nanofluids
W. Escher,
W. Escher
IBM Research GmbH
, Zurich Research Laboratory, 8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland; Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Laboratory of Thermodynamics in Emerging Technologies, ETH Zurich
, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland
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T. Brunschwiler,
T. Brunschwiler
IBM Research GmbH
, Zurich Research Laboratory, 8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland
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N. Shalkevich,
N. Shalkevich
Laboratoire de chimie physique des surfaces, Institut de Physique,
Universite de Neuchâtel
, Rue Emile-Argand 11, 2009-Neuchatel, Switzerland
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A. Shalkevich,
A. Shalkevich
Adolphe Merkle Institute,
Université de Fribourg
, P.O. Box 209 11, CH-1723 Marly 1, Switzerland
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T. Burgi,
T. Burgi
Laboratoire de chimie physique des surfaces, Institut de Physique,
Universite de Neuchâtel
, Rue Emile-Argand 11, 2009-Neuchatel, Switzerland; Physikalisch-Chemisches Institut, Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heidelberg
, Im Neuenheimer Feld 253, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
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B. Michel,
B. Michel
IBM Research GmbH
, Zurich Research Laboratory, 8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland
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D. Poulikakos
D. Poulikakos
Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Laboratory of Thermodynamics in Emerging Technologies,
e-mail: dimos.poulikakos@ethz.ch
ETH Zurich
, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland
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W. Escher
IBM Research GmbH
, Zurich Research Laboratory, 8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland; Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Laboratory of Thermodynamics in Emerging Technologies, ETH Zurich
, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland
T. Brunschwiler
IBM Research GmbH
, Zurich Research Laboratory, 8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland
N. Shalkevich
Laboratoire de chimie physique des surfaces, Institut de Physique,
Universite de Neuchâtel
, Rue Emile-Argand 11, 2009-Neuchatel, Switzerland
A. Shalkevich
Adolphe Merkle Institute,
Université de Fribourg
, P.O. Box 209 11, CH-1723 Marly 1, Switzerland
T. Burgi
Laboratoire de chimie physique des surfaces, Institut de Physique,
Universite de Neuchâtel
, Rue Emile-Argand 11, 2009-Neuchatel, Switzerland; Physikalisch-Chemisches Institut, Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heidelberg
, Im Neuenheimer Feld 253, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
B. Michel
IBM Research GmbH
, Zurich Research Laboratory, 8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland
D. Poulikakos
Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Laboratory of Thermodynamics in Emerging Technologies,
ETH Zurich
, 8092 Zurich, Switzerlande-mail: dimos.poulikakos@ethz.ch
J. Heat Transfer. May 2011, 133(5): 051401 (11 pages)
Published Online: February 4, 2011
Article history
Received:
August 31, 2009
Revised:
December 2, 2010
Online:
February 4, 2011
Published:
February 4, 2011
Citation
Escher, W., Brunschwiler, T., Shalkevich, N., Shalkevich, A., Burgi, T., Michel, B., and Poulikakos, D. (February 4, 2011). "On the Cooling of Electronics With Nanofluids." ASME. J. Heat Transfer. May 2011; 133(5): 051401. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4003283
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