Thermally ‘smart’ characteristics of nanofluids in parallel microchannel systems to mitigate hot spots in MEMS

Mitigation of ‘hot spots’ in MEMS employing in–situ microchannel systems requires a comprehensive picture of the maldistribution of the working fluid and uniformity of cooling within the same. In this article, detailed simulations employing parallel micro channel systems with specialized manifold-channel configurations i.e. U, I and Z have been performed. EulerianLagrangian Discrete Phase Model (DPM) and Effective Property Model (EPM) with water and alumina-water nanofluid as working fluids have been employed. The distributions of the dispersed particulate phase and continuous phase have been observed to be, in general, different from the flow distribution and this has been found to be strongly dependent on the flow configuration. Accordingly, detailed discussions on the mechanisms governing such particle distribution patterns have been proposed. Particle maldistribution has been conclusively shown to be influenced by various migration and diffusive phenomena like Stokesian drag, Brownian motion, thermophoretic drift, etc. To understand the uniformity of cooling within the device, which is of importance in real time scenario, an appropriate figure of merit has been proposed. It