Cooling systems for very compact electronic components and computer chips are being miniaturized to meet the need for smaller overall packaging. One of the important present directions has been to use laminar flow in very small channels with hydraulic diameters in the sub-millimeter range to get high heat transfer coefficients with low pressure drops. It has been speculated that there might be some advantage to having convective subcooled boiling (SCB) occur in the micro-channels. As a first step in the evaluation of the utility of subcooled boiling in these micro-channels, a model has been developed for subcooled boiling in sub-millimeter diameter microtubes subject to uniform heat flux. This model builds on a previously well-validated computer code for convective subcooled boiling in tubes down to 1.57 mm inner diameter. The basic features of the new microtube model are described and some predictions using this model for 0.3 mm and 0.1 mm microtubes subject to a high heat flux of 10 MW/m² are given.

Date Published: 25 February 1993
PDF: 18 pages
Proc. SPIE 1739, High Heat Flux Engineering, (25 February 1993); doi: 10.1117/12.140537

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1739:
High Heat Flux Engineering
Ali M. Khounsary, Editor(s)