Experimental investigation of single-phase convective heat transfer in circular microchannels

In this study, the heat transfer characteristics of single-phase forced convection of R134a through single circular micro-channels with 1.7, 1.2, and 0.8 mm. as inner diameters were investigated experimentally. The results were compared both to correlations for the heat transfer in macroscale channels and to correlations suggested for microscale geometries. The results show good agreement between the classical correlations and the experimentally measured data in the turbulent region. Contrary, none of the suggested correlations for microchannels, agreed with the test data. In the laminar regime, the heat transfer coefficients were almost identical for all three diameters. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.