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Articles

Hydrothermal and Second Law Analyses of Fluid Flow in Converging-Diverging (Hourglass) Microchannel

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Pages 277-302 | Published online: 23 Mar 2022
 

Abstract

A three-dimensional numerical investigation is carried out to understand the mechanism of hydrothermal performance and second law analysis for a flow through converging-diverging (hourglass) microchannel. The fluid flow and convective heat transfer characteristics are investigated as a function of convergence-divergence angle, width ratio (ratio of bigger width to smaller width), and Reynolds number. The present study uses various parameters such as performance evaluation index, entropy generation, Bejan number, and augmented entropy generation number to examine the hydrothermal and thermodynamic performance characteristics of an hourglass microchannel. The parametric analysis reveals that the Nusselt number increases with an increase in convergence-divergence angle; however, it decreases with an increase in width ratio. Increasing the convergence-divergence angle effectively reduces the overall temperature gradient, whereas the width ratio has an opposite effect. The results also indicate that the hourglass microchannel shows better hydrothermal and thermodynamic performance than the uniform microchannel. For a given range of parameters, the maximum value of the performance evaluation index is 1.34, and the maximum reduction in entropy generation is 28% relative to a uniform microchannel. The findings obtained in this study may serve as a valuable roadmap for designing an hourglass microchannel in diverse heat transfer applications.

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Notes on contributors

Sandeep Goli

Goli Sandeep is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, India. He has been a researcher in Microfluidics Laboratory in IIT-Bombay since 2015. His present work is concerned with flow dynamics and thermal transport phenomena in combined diverging and converging microchannel profiles. He is also investigating conjugate effects in such microchannels and their utility in designing microscale devices for several microchannel cooling systems and biomedical applications. His research interests include microscale flows, computational fluid dynamics, heat transfer, and microchannel cooling systems.

Sandip K. Saha

Sandip K. Saha has joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, India, in 2012 and is an Associate Professor. He received his B.E. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India, and the M.Sc. (Engg.) and Ph.D. degrees from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. Prior to joining the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, he was with R&D TATA Steel, India, as a Researcher and Applied Mechanics and Energy Conversion, Department of Mechanical Engineering, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, as a Post-Doctoral Fellow. He has received BASE fellowship to conduct research on Solar Thermal Applications. His research interests include computational fluid dynamics, heat transfer, thermal management of electronics, microchannel cooling, thermal storage systems for solar thermal applications, and thermal management of buildings. He has authored or coauthored over 90 journal articles and filed for six patents. He has been awarded the IIT Bombay research award, 2020.

Amit Agrawal

Amit Agrawal joined the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay in 2004 and is currently an Institute Chair Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Dean of International Relations, IIT Bombay. His research interests are in micro-scale flows, the development of novel bio-microdevices, theoretical fluid mechanics, and turbulent flows. He has published more than 200 journal articles and filed for a dozen patents with his students. His primary contributions are in the development of a unique blood plasma separation microdevice and derivation of equations that are more general than the Navier-Stokes equations. His insights and novel results on transmission of COVID-19 are documented as 7 Featured Articles in the prestigious journal Physics of Fluids. He has authored a well-received book entitled Microscale Flow and Heat Transfer: Mathematical Modeling and Flow Physics. He has served as Editor of several reputed journals and is an elected Fellow of the prestigious Indian National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences India, and the Indian Academy of Sciences. He has been awarded the Department of Atomic Energy DAE-SRC Outstanding Investigator Award, Prof. K.N. Seetharamu Medal by Indian Society of Heat and Mass Transfer, IIT Bombay's Prof. H.H. Mathur Award for Excellence in Applied Sciences, and the country's highest scientific honor – the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for his seminal contributions.

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