Swirl flow in microchannels: patterned slip walls enhance heat transport

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that patterned slip/no-slip walls in microchannels can induce swirl flow, significantly enhancing heat transfer efficiency without increasing pumping power, offering a simple energy-neutral cooling strategy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel slip/no-slip boundary pattern that generates swirl flow in microchannels, improving heat transfer without geometric modifications or additional energy input.

Findings

Swirl flow is effectively generated by boundary patterning.

Heat transfer efficiency is improved at fixed flow rates.

No increase in hydraulic resistance or pumping power is observed.

Abstract

Microchannel heat sinks (MCHS) are widely used for thermal management in high-power electronics due to their ability to dissipate large heat fluxes with minimal coolant consumption. While numerous strategies - such as geometric modifications, surface disruptions, and enhanced coolant formulations - have been explored to improve heat transfer, many of these approaches increase hydraulic resistance and pumping power requirements. Recent studies have shown that slip/no-slip wall patterns can enhance flow rates and convective heat removal without additional energy input, and that patterned microstructures can induce secondary swirling motions known to promote mixing and heat transfer. Motivated by these findings, we investigate a slip/no-slip pattern specifically designed to generate swirl flow inside a straight microchannel. Building upon prior work on passive chaotic advection and boundary-condition engineering, we assess the hydrodynamic and thermal performance of this patterned configuration under conditions relevant to laminar microchannel cooling. Our results demonstrate that appropriately arranged slip/no-slip regions can induce swirl without geometric perturbations or increased pumping power, ultimately improving heat transfer efficiency at fixed volumetric flow rate. This study highlights the potential of boundary-condition patterning as a simple, energy-neutral strategy for enhancing the performance of microfluidic heat-transfer devices.