Flow boiling in a relatively large copper heat sink comprised of Tesla microchannels

• Published in: International journal of heat and mass transfer 2025-01, Vol.236, p.126366, Article 126366
• Main Authors: Liu, Zhaoxuan, Han, Qun, Han, Jingwei, Zhang, Yuanle, Chen, Xuemei, Li, Wenming
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Flow boiling; Suppression of vapor backflow; Tesla microchannel; Two-phase flow instabilities
• ISSN: 0017-9310
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2024.126366

•A novel copper heat sink comprised of Tesla microchannels characterized with high L/Dh ratio of 220 is designed and fabricated.•The periodic Tesla valve structures is capable of inhibiting the vapor backflow and delay boiling crisis.•Flow boiling and two-phase flow stabilities are significantly enhanced owing to the successful suppression of two-phase backflow.•CHF and HTC are significantly enhanced by 57.4 % and 106.7 % compared to plain wall microchannel.•The flow boiling instabilities in terms of pressure and temperature fluctuations are significantly suppressed. Flow boiling in copper microchannel heat sink is widely used for the cooling of high power electronic modules, particularly the IGBT power electronic modules with large sizes. However, it is challenging to significantly enhance the flow boiling performance of copper microchannel heat sink due to the long-lasting issue of vapor backflow and liquid supply that severely deteriorates flow boiling heat transfer. Also, a high channel length to hydraulic diameter ratio (L/Dh) of a large heat sink is not favorable for efficient two-phase transport, resulting in the early occurrence of boiling crisis. In this work, a relatively large copper heat sink (L × W = 10 cm × 5 cm) comprised of Tesla microchannels characterized with excellent flow diodicity was designed and fabricated. The L/Dh ratio of the as-designed heat sink is about 220, which is much larger than the reported studies. In this new heat sink, the periodic Tesla valve structures in each channel is capable of inhibiting the severe vapor backflow to dramatically enhance the two-phase transport and then delay the dryout of heating surface. To demonstrate the advantages of our design, the flow boiling performances in terms of heat transfer coefficient (HTC), critical heat flux (CHF), and two-phase flow stabilities were experimentally studied and a comprehensive comparison against a heat sink consisted of plain-wall microchannels is presented. Experiments were conducted on DI-water with total inlet flow rate varying from 20 ml·min-1 to 50 ml·min-1. The results of this study show that flow boiling performances and two-phase flow stabilities are significantly enhanced owing to the successful suppression of two-phase backflow and efficient two-phase transport. For example, at a flow rate of 50 ml·min-1, the CHF and HTC of this design in the forward direction are about 30.6 W·cm-2 and 49.7 kW·m-2K-1, respectively, accompanied by significant enhancemen