This paper presents an analytical and numerical study on the heat transfer characteristics of forced convection across a microchannel heat sink. Two analytical approaches are used: the porous medium model and the fin approach. In the porous medium approach, the modified Darcy equation for the fluid and the two-equation model for heat transfer between the solid and fluid phases are employed. Firstly, the effects of channel aspect ratio (χs) and effective thermal conductivity ratio ( ) on the overall Nusselt number of the heat sink are studied in detail. The predictions from the two approaches both show that the overall Nusselt number (Nu) increases as χs is increased and decreases with increasing . However, the results also reveal that there exists significant difference between the two proaches for both the temperature distributions and overall Nusselt numbers, and the discrepancy becomes larger as either as or is increased. It is suggested that this discrepancy can be attributed to the indispensable assumption of uniform fluid temperature in the direction normal to the coolant flow invoked in the fin approach. The effect of porosity (e) on the thermal performance of the microchannel is subsequently examined. It is found that whereas the porous medium model predicts the existence of an optimal porosity for the microchannel heat sink, the fin approach predicts that the heat transfer capability of the heat sink increases monotonically with the porosity. The effect of turbulent heat transfer within the microchannel is next studied, and it is found that turbulent heat transfer results in a decreased optimal porosity in comparison with that for the laminar flow. A new concept of microchannel cooling in combination with microheat pipes is proposed, and the enhancement in heat transfer due to the heat pipes is estimated. Finally, two-dimensional numerical calculations are conducted for both constant heat flux and constant wall temperature conditions to check the accuracy of analytical solutions and to examine the effect of different boundary conditions on the overall heat transfer.

The effective thermal conductivity of steel alloy FeCrAlY (Fe-20wt.% Cr-5wt.% Al-2wt.% Y-20wt.%) foams with a range of pore sizes and porosities was measured between 300 and 800K, under both vacuum and atmospheric conditions. The results show that the effective thermal conductivity increases rapidly as temperature is increased, particularly in the higher temperature range (500-800K) where the transport of heat is dominated by thermal radiation. The effective conductivity at temperature 800K can be three times higher than that at room temperature (300K). Results obtained under vacuum conditions reveal that the effective conductivity increases with increasing pore size or decreasing porosity. The contribution of natural convection to heat conduction was found to be significant, with the effective thermal conductivity at ambient pressure twice the value of vacuum condition. The results also show that natural convection in metal foams is strongly dependent upon porosity.

The sound absorption capacity of one type of aluminum alloy foams-trade name Alporas-is studied experimentally. The foam in its as-received cast form contains closed porosities, and hence does not absorb sound well. To make the foam more transparent to air motion, techniques based on either rolling or hole drilling are used. Under rolling, the faces of some of the cells break to form small sharp-edged cracks as observed from a scanning electronic microscope. These cracks become passage ways for the in-and-out movement of air particles, resulting in sound absorption improvement. The best performance is nevertheless achieved via hole drilling where nearly all of the sound can be absorbed at selected frequencies. Combining rolling with hole drilling does not appear to lend additional benefits for sound absorption. Image analysis is carried out to characterize the changes in cell morphologies due to rolling/compression, and the drop in elastic modulus due to the formation of cracks is recorded. The effects of varying the relative foam density and panel thickness on sound absorption are measured, and optimal relative density and thickness of the panel are identified. Analytical models are used to explain the measured increase in sound absorption due to rolling and/or drilling. Sound absorbed by viscous flow across small cracks appears to dominate over that dissipated via ]other mechanisms.

The efficiency of micro-cell aluminium honeycombs in augmenting heat transfer in compact heat exchangers is evaluated using analytical models. For convective cooling, the overall heat transfer rate is found to be elevated by about two order of magnitudes when an open channel is designed with an aluminium honeycomb core. The performance is comparable to that achieved by using open-celled aluminium foams, but attributed to different mechanisms. At low Reynolds numbers (＜2000), the flow is essentially laminar in honeycombs, in contrast to the largely turbulent flow in metal foams; this deficiency in fluid dynamics is compensated for by the superior surface area density offered by honeycombs over foams. Another advantage of designing heat sinks with honeycombs is the relatively small pressure drop experienced and minimal noise generated by the laminar flow. The overall heat transfer rate of the heat sink is maximised when the cell morphology of the honeycomb is optimised[ However, the optimal cell morphology is not constant but dependent upon the geometry and heat transfer condition of the heat sink as well as the type of convective cooling medium used. For air cooling, the optimal relative density of the honeycomb is about 9.0. Other related e}ects, such as cell orientation and double cell wall thickness, are discussed.

The propagation of a pre-existing edge crack across a finite plate subjected to cold shock has been studied. The plate, initially at uniform temperature, is exposed to a cold shock on one surface whilst three dierent types of heat transfer boundary condition are separately considered for the opposing face: cold shock, thermal insulation and fixed temperature. For all three boundary conditions, the plate experiences tensile stress near the cold-shocked surface and compressive stressing near the mid-plane. Consequently, a Mode I edge crack extending into the compressive region may grow in one of three different modes: continued extension in plane strain, channelling and spalling. The thermal shock conditions governing each failure mode are quantified, with a focus on crack channelling and spalling. The dislocation method is employed to calculate the energy release rates for plane strain cracking and steady-state channelling. For steady-state spalling, the energy release rate is obtained by an energy analysis of elastic beams far ahead and far behind the crack tip. Analytical solutions are also obtained in the short crack limit in which the problem is reduced to an edge crack extending in a half space; and the parameter range over which the short crack solution is valid for a finite plate is determined. Failure maps for the various cracking patterns are constructed in terms of the critical temperature jump and Biot number, and merit indices are identified for materials selection against failure by thermal shock.