NUMERICAL STUDY ON HEAT TRANSFER AND FLOW CHARACTERISTICS OF HYBRID NANOFLUID ON HEXAGONAL SERPENTINE MICROCHANNEL HEAT SINK

As batteries continue to power diverse electronic devices, managing heat generation becomes critical for performance and longevity. Microchannel heat sinks (MCHS) have emerged as promising cooling solutions for dissipating heat generated by batteries in several applications. The present work investigates the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics of hybrid nanofluid in a serpentine microchannel with hexagonal cross section. The water, nanofluid (Al2O3/water, CuO/water) and hybrid nanofluid (Al2O3-CuO/Water) are considered as functional fluids. The model was meshed and analysed using ANSYS software. The investigation was conducted to compute the rate of heat transfer, Nusselt number, thermal resistance, friction factor, pressure drop value, pumping power of the different fluids within a microchannel. The results obtained were compared to each other and it showed that hybrid nanofluid enhances heat transfer rate and Nusselt number. Additionally, the pressure drop increased by 13.18% for hybrid nanofluid when equated to water.