Cooling Enhancements in Thin Films Supported by Flexible Complex Seals in the Presence of Ultrafine Suspensions

Flow and heat transfer inside thin films supported by flexible soft seals having voids of a stagnant fluid possessing a large coefficient of volumetric thermal expansion bT are studied in the presence of suspended ultrafine particles. The study is conducted under periodically varying thermal load conditions. The governing continuity, momentum and energy equations are non-dimensionalized and reduced to simpler forms. The deformation of the seal is related to the internal pressure and lower plate’s temperature based on the theory of linear elasticity and a linearized model for thermal expansion. It is found that enhancements in the cooling are achieved by an increase in the volumetric thermal expansion coefficient, thermal load, thermal dispersion effects, softness of the supporting seals and the thermal capacitance of the coolant fluid. Further, thermal dispersion effects are found to increase the stability of the thin film. The noise in the thermal load is found to affect the amplitude of the thin film thickness, Nusselt number and the lower plate temperature however it has a negligible effect on their mean values. @DOI: 10.1115/1.1597612#