Thermal performance enhancement of microchannel heat sinks with a decreasing-height bifurcation plate

The increasing demand for data center services results in increased energy consumption in data centers. Therefore, improving the energy efficiency in the cooling process in data centers is unavoidable. Microchannel heat sinks are employed for electronic component cooling in data centers. This work aims to improve the thermal performance of bifurcated microchannels at reduced pumping power consumption. In this regard, the thermo-hydraulic performance of a microchannel with a decreasing-height bifurcation plate (DHBP) is examined. Results showed that the microchannel with DHBP outperforms the microchannel with a constant-height bifurcation plate (CHBP) in terms of the average heat transfer coefficient. Furthermore, the pressure drop penalty of the DHBP microchannel is the same as that of the CHBP microchannel. This study confirms that decreasing the bifurcation plate height in the flow direction enhances the thermal performance of the bifurcated microchannel heat sink at a constant pumping power.