International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 38 (2012) 159–167

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International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhff

Numerical investigation of liquid flow with phase change nanoparticles

in microchannels
Awad B.S. Alquaity a, Salem A. Al-Dini a, Evelyn N. Wang b, Bekir S. Yilbas a,⇑
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
b
Device Research Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A numerical solution is introduced to investigate the effect of laminar flow with a suspension of phase
Received 10 February 2012 change material nanoparticles (PCMs) in a microchannel. The nanoparticle suspension consisting of lauric
Received in revised form 20 June 2012 acid nanoparticles in water is introduced into a microchannel of 50 lm height and 35 mm length, where a
Accepted 9 October 2012
constant heat flux is applied to the bottom wall. Mass, momentum and energy equations are solved
Available online 3 November 2012
simultaneously using a fluid with effective thermo-physical properties. The effect of various parameters
including mass flow rate (1  105–4  105 kg/s), heat flux (8000–20,000 W/m2) and particle volume
Keywords:
concentrations (0–10%) on the thermal performance is investigated using effectiveness ratio, perfor-
Microchannel
Phase change material
mance index, and Merit number. The study is extended to include the optimum channel length for
Nanoparticles improved thermal performance. For a given particle concentration, an optimum heat flux to mass flow
Laminar flow rate ratio exists that leads to the maximum effectiveness ratio of 2.75, performance index of 1.37 and
Merit number of 0.64. Such a study facilitates understanding the parametric space to optimize heat trans-
fer in microchannels for applications such as thermal management and energy conversion devices.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The development of next generation microchips, microproces-
sors and other small scale high heat generating applications is
constrained by the issue of effective heat removal (Sabbah et al.,
2008). The cooling capacity required to reach switching speeds
needed for next generation computing devices is of the order of
105 W/cm3 which cannot be met by current liquid cooling systems
including microchannel heat sinks (Xing et al., 2005). A promising
method to meet the electronic cooling demands for next generation
devices, by enhancing heat storage capacity of the heat transfer
fluid, is to introduce PCM particles in the fluid. The phase change
of the PCM particles in the fluid significantly enhances its heat stor-
age capacity and thus increases its ability to absorb high heat fluxes.
Therefore, a quantitative assessment of the heat storage capacity
increase of the fluid in a microchannel flow with the presence of
particles becomes essential. In addition to the heat storage capacity
increase, it is also necessary to determine the effect of particles on
the pressure drop and entropy generation inside the microchannel.
Significant efforts have focused on using PCMs for improving the
thermal performance of the carrier fluid in the past decade (Sabbah
et al., 2008; Xing et al., 2005; Kondle et al., 2009; Kuravi et al., 2009,
2010; Goel et al., 1994; Roy and Avanic, 1997; Yamagishi et al.,
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +966 3 8604481; fax: +966 3 860 5223.
E-mail address: bsyilbas@kfupm.edu.sa (B.S. Yilbas).
1999; Rao et al., 2007; Wang et al., 2007, 2008; Chen et al., 2008;
Zeng et al., 2009). More recently, interest in the thermal perfor-
mance of PCM slurries in microchannels have emerged for applica-
tions in microchannel heat exchangers and cooling of electronic
devices (Sabbah et al., 2008; Xing et al., 2005; Kondle et al., 2009;
Kuravi et al., 2009, 2010). Sabbah et al. (2008) performed a three-
dimensional numerical study on the performance of microchannel
heat sinks using micro-encapsulated PCMs and considered the ther-
mal resistance of the heat sink walls while incorporating tempera-
ture dependent physical properties for the PCM slurry. Xing et al.
(2005) evaluated the performance of liquid flow with PCM particles
in circular microchannels. The conservation equations for the parti-
cle and liquid phase were solved separately while considering the
effects of particle–particle interaction and the particle depletion
boundary near the wall. A particular Reynolds number and wall
heat flux was found to achieve maximum heat transfer enhance-
ment with PCM particles. Kondle et al. (2009) numerically studied
heat transfer characteristics of PCMs in a laminar flow for circular
and rectangular microchannels. The carrier fluid and particles were
modeled using homogeneous model while a specific heat model
was used for the phase change of particles. Kuravi et al. (2009) used
a similar homogeneous model to study numerically the thermal
performance of nano-encapsulated PCM slurry in microchannels.
The temperature and velocity fields were obtained in three dimen-
sional domain and the model included the microchannel fin effect
along with the longitudinal conduction along the microchannel

0142-727X/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatfluidflow.2012.10.001
160 A.B.S. Alquaity et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 38 (2012) 159–167

Nomenclature

Aflow cross-sectional area of the microchannel (m2) Ste Stefan number

C volume concentration of nanoparticles T temperature (K)
cp specific heat (J kg1 K1) Tref reference temperature taken as 298 K
cp,S specific heat of particles in solid state (J kg1 K1) Tsolidus lower melting temperature (K)
cp,L specific heat of particles in liquid state (J kg1 K1) Tliquidus upper melting temperature (K)
Dh hydraulic diameter of the microchannel (m) U x component of velocity (m s1)
I_ rate of irreversibility (W) V velocity (m s1)
K thermal conductivity (W m1 K1)
L latent heat of melting of particles (J kg1) Greek symbols
m_ mass flow rate (kg s1) l dynamic viscosity (N s m2)
P pressure (Pa) P density (kg m3)
Prb Prandtl number, Prb ¼ cpb lb =kb
q00 heat flux (W m2) Subscripts
Q heat transfer rate (W) B bulk fluid
Reb Reynolds number, Reb ¼ qb v Dh =lb F carrier fluid
S000
gen volumetric entropy generation (W m3 K1) p particle
S000
gen;av g averaged volumetric entropy generation rate (W m3 -
K1)

length. Kuravi et al. (2010) investigated the heat transfer perfor-
mance of water-based microencapsulated PCM slurry in manifold
microchannels both experimentally and numerically. Their findings
revealed that the slurry performance was poorer as compared to
single fluid. They also performed a parametric study with nano-
encapsulated PCM slurry flow. The results of the parametric study
showed that using narrower channels and PCM particles with
higher thermal conductivity improved the thermal performance
of PCM slurry as compared to a single fluid. The laminar hydrody-
namic and heat transfer characteristics of suspension flow with
micro-nano-size phase-change material (PCM) particles in a micro-
channel were investigated by Hao and Tao (2006). They indicated
that the heat transfer enhancement took place in wall region due
to the presence of PCM particles. Liquid–liquid two-phase flow in
pore array microstructured devices for scaling-up of nanoparticle
preparation was examined by Li et al. (2009). The findings revealed
that the particle size was decreased with the increase of the droplet
size in both the drop flow region and the disk flow region whereas it
had a reverse trend in the transition region. Although significant
studies using homogeneous model have been performed in the
past, none of them have presented the entropy generation due to
the addition of PCM particles. For this purpose, we have defined
the Merit number to incorporate the thermodynamic irreversibility
in the flow system. Moreover, in this paper, we have performed a
comprehensive study of the influence of various parameters,
including mass flow rate, heat flux, and particle volume concentra-
tions, on the thermal performance of the slurry. We use water as the
carrier fluid and lauric acid as the PCM particles with different vol-
ume concentrations ranging from 0% to 10% in the analysis. Homo-
geneous model was used to simulate temperature and flow fields.
The thermo-physical properties of the PCM particles are assumed
to be constant during the simulations and are given in Table 1.
The thermo-physical properties of carrier fluid are assumed to be
temperature dependent.
2. Model framework
A schematic of the microchannel incorporated in the model
study is shown in Fig. 1. In this case, a microchannel of constant
height (50 lm, H) and length (35,000 lm, L) is defined in the FLU-
ENT™ simulations. For 3D simulations, width of the microchannel
is considered to be 2 mm, which is 40 times the microchannel
height. The carrier fluid with nanosized particles is assumed to en-
ter into the microchannel at a temperature just below the melting
temperature of the particles. A constant heat flux is applied at the
bottom wall, which heats the carrier fluid and particles. After tra-
versing a certain length of the microchannel, the particles undergo
phase change. The phase change of the particles plays an important
role in decreasing the temperature rise of the fluid as compared to
the case with no phase change particles in the flow system and
thereby increases the thermal storage capacity of the fluid.
In order to formulate the flow and heat transfer problem, the
following assumptions were made:
 The flow of the bulk fluid inside the microchannel is steady and
laminar.
 The fluid is Newtonian up to particle volume concentrations of
10% (Kuravi et al., 2009).
 The shell encapsulating nanoparticles will be thin, so its effect
has been neglected (Kuravi et al., 2009).
 The particles and carrier fluid are assumed to have the same
temperature and velocity in the microchannel (Kuravi et al.,
2009).
 The distribution of particles inside the microchannel is homoge-
neous (Kuravi et al., 2009).
 The PCM particle melts instantaneously once the melting tem-
perature is reached (Kuravi et al., 2009).
2.1. Homogeneous model

Table 1 The governing equations of mass, momentum and energy are

Thermophysical properties of PCM particles. solved using the appropriate effective thermo-physical properties
Fluid Density Specific heat Latent heat Thermal of the bulk fluid. The equations governing laminar flow for the bulk
(kg/m3) (kJ/kg K) (kJ/kg) conductivity fluid are shown below:
(W/m K) Continuity equation:
Particle (solid) 1007 1.76 211 0.147
Particle (liquid) 862 2.27 – 0.147 v ¼0
r~ ð1Þ
 A.B.S. Alquaity et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 38 (2012) 159–167 161

Fig. 1. Schematic of microchannel used in the FLUENT simulations where heat flux is applied to the bottom wall, and H is the microchannel height, L is the microchannel
length. The side walls are assumed to be adiabatic.

Momentum equation: For T solidus < T p < T liquidus :

v Þ ¼ rp þ lb r2 v
v~
r  ðqb~ ð2Þ   
c þc L
c q p;S 2 p;L þ T þ ð1  cÞðqcp Þf
liquidus T solidus p
Energy equation: cpb ¼ ð8Þ
qb
v cpb TÞ ¼ r  ðkb rTÞ
r  ðqb~ ð3Þ For T P > T liquidus :

2.2. Bulk fluid thermo-physical properties cðqcp;L Þp þ ð1  cÞðqcp Þf

2.2.1. Viscosity
The introduction of 50 nm diameter of PCM nanoparticles into
the carrier fluid increases its viscosity. The bulk viscosity is calcu-
lated as (Vand, 1945):
lb ¼ ð1  c  1:16c2 Þ2:5 lf
The above correlation for bulk viscosity was found to agree well
with experimental data presented in (Fang et al., 2009) for nanopar-
ticle volume concentrations below 11%.
2.2.2. Thermal conductivity
The Maxwell model (Maxwell, 1954) is used for calculating the
bulk thermal conductivity, which is:
2 þ kp =kf þ 2cðkp =kf  1Þ
kb ¼ kf
2 þ kp =kf  cðkp =kf  1Þ
Recently a benchmark experimental study was carried out to
measure the effective thermal conductivity of nanofluids. The
study concluded that the effective medium theory developed for
dispersed particles by Maxwell (1954) is in good agreement with
the experimental data (Buongiorno et al., 2009).
2.2.3. Density
The density of the bulk fluid can be calculated using mass bal-
ance as (Sabbah et al., 2008):
qb ¼ cqp þ ð1  cÞqf
2.2.4. Specific heat
In order to account for the phase change of the particles, a spe-
cific heat model is used (Kondle et al., 2009). In the specific heat
model, the particle’s phase change is modeled by varying the
specific heat capacity of the particles across the solidus and the liq-
uidus temperatures. Since the melting temperature of lauric acid is
317.2 K, the melting range of PCM particles is assumed to 316.7–
317.7 K. The specific heat of the bulk fluid can be calculated using
the energy balance (Sabbah et al., 2008):
For T p < T solidus :
cðqcp;S Þp þ ð1  cÞðqcp Þf
cpb ¼
qb
cpb ¼ ð9Þ
qb
The mass flow rate of the bulk fluid at the inlet was varied
between 105 kg/s and 4  105 kg/s. The heat flux at the bottom
wall of the microchannel was varied between 8000 W/m2 and
20,000 W/m2. The temperature of the particles and carrier fluid is
315 K at the inlet, which is less than the melting temperature of
ð4Þ the PCM particles. At the microchannel outlet, pressure outlet
boundary condition is considered. The pressure outlet boundary
condition assumes an absolute pressure of 1 atm at the outlet
and zero diffusion fluxes in the direction normal to the exit plane
for all flow variables (i.e., the velocity and temperature) except
pressure.
3. Numerical solution
ð5Þ
The control volume approach is used for the discretization of
governing equations using FLUENT 12.1.2 C.F.D. code (FLUENT,
2010). All variables are computed at each grid point except the
velocities, which are determined midway between the grid points.
A staggered grid arrangement is used in the present study, which
links the pressure through the continuity equation and is known
as SIMPLE algorithm (Patankar, 1980). The pressure relationship
between continuity and momentum is established by transforming
the continuity equation into a Poisson equation for pressure. The
convergence criterion for the scaled residuals is set to 106 for con-
tinuity and 109 for energy equation. Further, surface monitor of
temperature at the outlet was used to ensure convergence. Second
ð6Þ
order upwind schemes were used for discretization of momentum
and energy equations.
3.1. Grid
A numerical mesh generator was used to create the geometry
and mesh the domain using hexahedral elements. A fine mesh
was created near the walls to capture the large gradients normal
to the flow direction. Three different grid resolutions, 20 
14,000 (Grid 1), 35  18,000 (Grid 2) and 50  35,000 (Grid 3) were
used to obtain a grid-independent solution. The maximum differ-
ence in Nusselt between the three grids was 0.14. Therefore, Grid
2 was used for further simulations. After the grid independence
test, Grid 2 was also validated against analytical Nusselt number
ð7Þ and fanning friction factor results for 2D parallel plate subjected
to constant heat flux boundary condition at the top and bottom
162 A.B.S. Alquaity et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 38 (2012) 159–167
Table 2
Comparison between constant properties and temperature dependent properties.
Constant Temperature Percentage
properties dependant properties difference (%)
DT (K) 33.69 33.7 0.04
DP (Pa) 10621.7 8193.8 29.6
walls (Kandlikar, 2006). The difference in Nusselt numbers was of
the order of 2%, while the numerical value of friction factor
matched exactly with that of the analytical value.
3.2. Temperature dependence
As indicated earlier, temperature dependent thermo-physical
properties are used for the carrier fluid. Table 2 shows a compari-
son of the temperature rise and pressure drop in case of using con-
stant thermo-physical properties and temperature dependent
thermo-physical properties. The temperature rise shows a negligi-
ble difference in both cases, but the use of constant properties
leads to pressure drop being over-estimated by about 30%. The
high pressure drop caused by using constant thermo-physical
properties is due to the viscosity of water, which is highly depen-
dent on temperature. The significant over-estimation of pressure
drop motivates performing simulations using temperature depen-
dent properties for the carrier fluid despite the longer computation
time.
3.3. Model validation
Due to the lack of comparable experimental data for PCM slurry
flow in microchannels, the homogeneous model used in this study
is validated through comparing the predictions with the experi-
mental data obtained for PCM slurry flow in a 3.14 mm diameter
circular tube (Goel et al., 1994) and in a 4 mm diameter circular
tube (Wang et al., 2008). Fig. 2 shows the comparison of wall tem-
perature for Stefan number of 3 predicted using homogeneous
model with the experimental data for 10% particle volume concen-
tration. Stefan number is defined as the ratio of sensible heat
capacity of the slurry to its latent heat capacity and is given as
(Goel et al., 1994):
cpb q00 Dh qb
Ste ¼
2kb cLqp
Fig. 2. Comparison of wall temperature obtained using homogeneous model with
experimental data (Goel et al., 1994).
Fig. 3. Comparison of Nusselt number obtained using homogeneous model with
experimental data (Chen et al., 2008).
It can be observed that the wall temperature predicted by the
current model compares well with experimental data.
Fig. 3 compares the Nusselt number for two Reynolds number
and Stefan number combinations, i.e., Reynolds numbers of 691
and 1418, and Stefan numbers of 1.09 and 1.38. It can be observed
that the Nusselt number predicted by the current homogeneous
model compares well with the experimental data.
The non-dimensional length used in Fig. 3 is defined as:
2x
xþ ¼ ð11Þ
Dh Reb Prb
where Reb is Reynolds number and Prb is the Prandtl number of the
bulk fluid.
4. Results and discussion
We investigated the effect of particle volume concentration,
mass flow rate and heat flux on the thermal performance of bulk
fluid inside the microchannel. The effectiveness ratio (Xing et al.,
2005), performance index (Xing et al., 2005), and Merit number
are used, where the heat flux applied to different volume concen-
ð10Þ
trations of PCM fluids is the same, while the heat flux applied to
water is varied to maintain the same temperature rise as that of
PCM fluid. This approach helps compare the heat transfer increase
in the PCM slurry for the same temperature rise as that of water.
Fig. 4 shows temperature contours along the channel length for
the case with no PCM particles and with 10% particle volume con-
centration. The temperature contours shown in the figures corre-
spond to the case of mass flow rate of 4  105 kg/s and heat flux
of 16,000 W/m2. It can be observed from the figures that increasing
the concentration of PCM particles contributes to temperature de-
crease in the channel towards the channel exit by 4.12 K (61%
reduction in temperature), which is attributed to the latent heat
of fusion associated with the phase change of the PCM particles.
4.1. Effectiveness ratio
The effectiveness ratio is defined as the ratio of heat transfer
rate of bulk fluid to the heat transfer rate of carrier fluid for the
same temperature rise from inlet to exit of the microchannel.
Therefore, the effectiveness ratio gives an indication of the increase
in heat transfer of the PCM slurry for the same temperature rise as
that of the carrier fluid. For applications having restriction on tem-
perature rise of the heat transfer fluid, effectiveness ratio can be
 A.B.S. Alquaity et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 38 (2012) 159–167 163

Fig. 4. Temperature contour of carrier fluid along the channel length.

used to evaluate the enhancement in heat transfer which can be

obtained by using PCM particles in the carrier fluid. The effective-
ness ratio is defined as (Xing et al., 2005):

Qb
eeffectiv eness ¼ ð12Þ
Qf

where

Q b ¼ q00  Length  Width ð13Þ

_ p;f DT f
Q f ¼ mc ð14Þ
For the same carrier fluid and bulk fluid mass flow rates, the
effectiveness ratio simply reduces to a ratio of their average
specific heats. Fig. 5 shows the variation of effectiveness ratio with
heat flux to mass flow rate ratio for different particle volume con-
centrations of PCM particles. Initially, the effectiveness ratio in-
creases with increasing heat flux to mass flow rate ratio of PCM
slurry and keeps increasing until it reaches a peak value. Further
Fig. 5. Variation of effectiveness ratio with ratio of heat flux to mass flow rate of
increase in heat flux to mass flow rate ratio decreases the effective-
PCM slurry, where VF 3, VF 5, VF 7 and VF 10 represents 3%, 5%, 7% and 10% volume
ness ratio. The heat flux to mass flow rate ratio required to reach concentration of the particles, respectively.
the peak effectiveness ratio value increases with increasing volume
concentration of particles. Moreover, for higher volume concentra-
tion of PCM particles, the peak value of effectiveness ratio is higher. tio, increase in heat flux is reflected in an increase in the value of
This trend in the effectiveness ratio can be explained as follows: effectiveness ratio. The effectiveness ratio keeps increasing with
For a given mass flow rate, the effectiveness ratio is the highest increasing heat flux to mass flow rate ratio until enough heat flux
when the ratio of latent heat to sensible heat of the bulk fluid in the is applied to complete the melting of PCM particles within the
microchannel is the largest. The maximum value of latent heat to length of the microchannel. The heat flux to mass flow rate ratio re-
sensible heat ratio occurs when the particles reach the liquidus quired for complete phase change of PCM particles is larger for
temperature (upper melting temperature) at the exit of the micro- higher volume concentration of particles in the carrier fluid. Further
channel. This ensures that sensible heating occurs only near the in- increase in heat flux to mass flow rate ratio leads to an increase in
let of the microchannel, and, thus, the latent heat ratio is the the sensible heating of PCM particles after their phase change, and
maximum. For low heat flux to mass flow rate ratio values, the thus the effectiveness ratio starts to reduce. Consequently, the
phase change of PCM particles is not complete due to the low value effectiveness ratio increases initially, reaches a peak value and,
of heat flux applied. Therefore, at low heat flux to mass flow rate ra- then, decreases for all volume concentration of PCM particles.
164 A.B.S. Alquaity et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 38 (2012) 159–167

The maximum effectiveness ratio of 2.75 is obtained for PCM

particle volume concentration of 10%. The corresponding value of
effectiveness ratio indicates that for the same temperature rise,
the bulk fluid at the given operating condition can store 2.75 times
the heat flux, which is stored by carrier fluid. From Fig. 5 we can
conclude that for a given volume concentration of particles, there
exists a heat flux to mass flow rate ratio at which the effectiveness
ratio is maximum. A similar observation was presented in (Xing
et al., 2005).

4.2. Performance index

The performance index is defined as the ratio of heat transfer

rate to fluid pumping power of bulk fluid to the heat transfer rate
to fluid pumping power of carrier fluid. Since the pumping power
required for heat transfer fluids is an important criterion in thermal
management applications, the performance index enables the de-
signer to evaluate the increase in heat transfer rate of the PCM slur-
ry in comparison to the increase in its pumping power requirement.
Since the flow field considered is laminar, the pressure drop in the
channel is associated with the frictional loss, which is directly re-
lated to the pump power requirements. Since the effectiveness ratio
only helps the designer in quantifying the increase in heat transfer
due to the addition of PCM particles, the performance index gives a
more complete picture of the situation as it incorporates the in-
crease in pumping power requirement in addition to the increase
in heat transfer obtained due to the addition of PCM particles. The
performance index is defined as (Xing et al., 2005):
ðQ=PÞb
Performance index ¼
ðQ =PÞf
where the pumping power of the bulk fluid and carrier fluid are de-
fined, respectively as:
Pb ¼ Dpb V b Aflow
Pf ¼ Dpf V f Aflow
32Lqf V 2f
Dpf ¼
Ref D
Fig. 6 shows the variation of performance index with heat flux
to mass flow rate ratio for different particle volume concentrations
of PCM slurry. The performance index initially increases with
increasing heat flux to mass flow rate ratio, reaches a peak value
and then decreases. The performance index for each particle vol-
ume concentration follows the same trend as effectiveness ratio
with the same value of the optimum heat flux to mass flow rate ra-
tio. However, at high heat flux to mass flow rate ratio, the perfor-
mance index of the bulk fluid with higher volume concentration of
particles is lower than the performance index for lower volume
concentrations. The behavior of bulk fluid with higher particle vol-
ume concentrations having a lower performance index, compared
to bulk fluid with lower particle volume concentrations, is associ-
ated with increase in temperature of the bulk fluid, which causes
sharp decrease in viscosity. A larger temperature rise inside the
microchannel translates to a lower pressure drop compared to
the case in which a lower temperature rise of bulk fluid inside
the microchannel is encountered. The use of bulk fluid with high
particle concentrations suppresses the temperature rise as well
as increases the viscosity of the bulk fluid due to the presence of
high particle concentrations. The reduction in temperature rise is
due to the phase change of the particles inside the microchannel,
which increases the effectiveness ratio with increasing particle vol-
ume concentration, however, this also results in an increase in the
pressure drop of the bulk fluid. When the heat flux to mass flow
Fig. 6. Variation of performance index with ratio of heat flux to mass flow rate of
PCM slurry, where VF 3, VF 5, VF 7 and VF 10 represents 3%, 5%, 7% and 10% volume
concentration of the particles, respectively.
rate ratio is high, the increase in effectiveness ratio due to increase
in volume concentration of particles is not significant due to in-
crease in the sensible heating of the bulk fluid inside the micro-
channel. Therefore, when the increase in effectiveness ratio is
unable to offset the increase in pressure drop of the bulk fluid,
the performance index decreases. This results in bulk fluid with
high particle volume concentrations having a lower performance
ð15Þ index as observed in Fig. 6.
A performance index below unity indicates that the heat trans-
fer rate per fluid pumping power for the bulk fluid is lower than
the carrier fluid and, therefore, the bulk fluid should not be used
under these operating conditions. For 3% volume concentration of
ð16Þ
particles in the slurry, the performance index of the bulk fluid for
all heat flux to mass flow rate ratios is below unity (Fig. 6), indicat-
ð17Þ
ing that the use of bulk fluid entails a lower heat transfer rate to
fluid pumping power ratio, as compared to water. Moreover,
Fig. 6 reveals that the performance index of the bulk fluid contain-
ð18Þ
ing 5%, 7% and 10% volume concentrations exceeds unity only
within a range of heat flux to mass flow rate ratio.
The maximum performance index of 1.37 is obtained for parti-
cle volume concentration of 10%. The performance index follows a
similar trend as effectiveness ratio for a given particle volume con-
centration. From the above discussion, it can be concluded that for
a given volume concentration of particles, there exists a heat flux
to mass flow rate ratio at which the performance index is the max-
imum. A similar observation was also made in (Xing et al., 2005).
4.3. Merit number
The thermal conductivity of the bulk fluid decreases due to the
addition of PCM particles into the carrier fluid. Further, the addi-
tion of PCM particles increases the viscosity of the bulk fluid, there-
by, increasing the pressure drop in the microchannel. The decrease
in thermal conductivity and increase in pressure drop contribute to
an increase in the entropy generation rate inside the microchannel.
However, increase in volume concentration of particles increases
the heat flux than can be absorbed by the bulk fluid for a given
temperature rise. Therefore, Merit number is introduced to calcu-
late the ratio of the gain versus input and losses due to the addition
of particles. The Merit number takes into account the entropy
generation rate due to fluid friction and heat transfer caused by
the addition of PCM particles. It is defined as the ratio of the gain
in heat transfer due to the use of PCM particles to the sum of heat
 A.B.S. Alquaity et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 38 (2012) 159–167 165

"   2 #  2
2
kb @T @T lb @u
S000
gen ¼ 2 þ þ ð22Þ
T @x @y T @y

In Fig. 7 the Merit number is plotted against heat flux to mass

flow rate ratio for different particle volume concentrations. The
Merit number follows the same trend as effectiveness ratio with
the same value of optimum heat flux for a given particle volume
concentration. The Merit number of the bulk fluid with 10% volume
concentration of particles is the highest for all heat flux to mass
flow rate ratios considered in the simulations and it shows that
the increase in irreversibility due to the addition of PCM particles
is being offset by the gain in heat transfer for all heat flux to mass
flow rate ratios considered. While the performance index compares
the heat flux to pumping power ratio for PCM slurry with the heat
flux to pumping power ratio for carrier fluid only, the Merit num-
ber provides a comparison between the gain in heat transfer and
irreversibility due to different volume concentrations of PCM par-
ticles. The irreversibility takes into account the decrease in thermal
Fig. 7. Variation of Merit number with ratio of heat flux to mass flow rate of PCM conductivity as well as the increase in fluid friction caused by the
slurry, where VF 3, VF 5, VF 7 and VF 10 represents 3%, 5%, 7% and 10% volume addition of PCM particles to the carrier fluid. Therefore, the Perfor-
concentration of the particles, respectively.
mance Index includes the effect of increase in pressure drop only,
while the Merit number takes into account the effect of increase in
pressure drop as well as decrease in thermal conductivity of the
transferred at the bottom wall of the microchannel and the irre- bulk fluid. The highest Merit number is 0.64 and it can be observed
versibility. The Merit number is defined as: from Fig. 7 that for a given volume concentration of particles, there
exists a heat flux to mass flow rate ratio at which the Merit number
Q gain is maximum.
Merit number ¼ ð19Þ
Q b þ I_
where 4.4. Optimum length
Q gain ¼ Q b  Q f ð20Þ
As mentioned earlier, the enhancement in heat storage capacity
due to the addition of PCM particles is significant when the
I_ ¼ S000
gen;av g  v olume  T ref ð21Þ
completion of phase change of PCM particles coincides with the exit

Fig. 8. Optimum length of the microchannel.

166 A.B.S. Alquaity et al. / International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow 38 (2012) 159–167
Table 3
Constant C2 for different volume concentrations of PCM
particles.
Volume concentration C2
of PCM particles (%)
3 1.083
5 0.814
7 0.7
10 0.613
of the microchannel. The completion of phase change at the exit
ensures that the PCM slurry flow undergoes sensible heating only
near the inlet and thus maximum increase in heat storage capacity
is obtained. The length required for the phase change of PCM parti-
cles, defined as optimum length (Lopt), however, depends on the heat
flux applied, the mass flow rate of the PCM slurry as well as the vol-
ume concentration of PCM particles in the slurry. In this study, the
optimum length is obtained by calculating the distance from the in-
let of the microchannel to the axial location at which phase change of
PCM particles is completed for different heat fluxes, mass flow rates
and volume concentrations of particles. Using microchannels of
optimum length will result in peak values of the effectiveness ratio,
performance index and Merit number for given volume concentra-
tion of particles. Fig. 8 shows the variation of Lopt/Dh with the differ-
ent parameters, where Dh is the hydraulic diameter of the
microchannel. From Fig. 8, it can be clearly observed that increasing
the mass flow rate of the PCM slurry, while keeping volume concen-
tration of PCM particles and heat flux constant increases the
optimum length required for phase change. Increase in volume con-
centration of PCM particles while keeping other parameters con-
stant also leads to increase in the optimum length. Increase in heat
flux applied to the PCM slurry always decreases the optimum length.
Fig. 8 provides detailed design information for different heat fluxes,
mass flow rates and volume concentrations of PCM slurry for the
operating conditions used in this study. In general, the ratio Lopt/Dh
can be written as:
Lopt m_
¼ B1  00  ðB2 þ B3 Þ
Dh q Patel, H.E., Philip, J., Poulikakos, D., Reynaud, C., Savino, R., Savino, R., Singh, P.K.,
where B1 is a constant which depends on the dimensions of the
microchannel and constant B2 depends on the particle volume con-
centration, thermo-physical properties of the carrier fluid and PCM
particle and the slurry inlet temperature. The constant B3 depends
on the melting range of PCM particle and the thermo-physical prop-
erties of the PCM particle and carrier fluid. In the above equation, m_
is the slurry mass flow rate and q00 is the heat flux applied to differ-
ent volume concentrations of PCM slurry. For the conditions used in
this study, the above equation (Eq. (23)) can be written in terms of
heat flux, slurry mass flow rate and particle volume concentration
as:
Lopt m_
¼ C 1  00  ðC 2  c þ C 3 Þ
Dh q Kandlikar, S.G., 2006. Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow in Minichannels and
where C1, C2 and C3 are constants and c is the volume concentration
of PCM particles. For all volume concentration of PCM particles,
C1 = 5  1010 and C3 = 0.4. The value of constant C2 is different for
different volume concentration of particles and is given in Table 3.
The above Eq. (24) gives the value of Lopt/Dh within 3% error.
5. Conclusions
We investigated microchannel flow for water with the presence
of nanosized lauric acid PCM particles using the homogeneous fluid
model. A parametric study is carried out through varying the mass
flow rate, heat flux and particle volume concentration of the bulk
fluid. It is found that there exists an optimum heat flux to mass
flow rate ratio for a given volume concentration of particles at
which the effectiveness ratio, the performance index, and the Merit
number are the maximum. The effectiveness ratio is greater than 1
for all cases and it reaches a maximum value of 2.75. This indicates
that for the same temperature rise, the bulk fluid can store 175%
more heat as compared to carrier fluid without particles. The per-
formance index is lower than 1 for all heat flux to mass flow rate
ratios for the PCM slurry of 3% particle volume concentration.
The maximum value of the performance index is 1.37, which re-
flects a 37% increase in heat transfer rate to fluid pumping power
ratio of the bulk fluid as compared to carrier fluid. The Merit num-
ber follows the same trend as the effectiveness ratio, which indi-
cates that the increase in irreversibility due to addition of PCM
particles is offset by the gain in heat transfer. The effectiveness ra-
tio, performance index and the Merit number have the same corre-
sponding value of optimum heat flux to mass flow rate ratio for a
given particle concentration. The ratios calculated in this study,
namely, effectiveness ratio, performance index and Merit number
guide the designer regarding the conditions to be used in order
to obtain the maximum benefit by the addition of PCM particles.
Moreover, Lopt/Dh guides the designer in selecting the dimensions
of the microchannel for the operating conditions used in this study.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support of Center of Excellence for
Scientific Research Collaboration with MIT and King Fahd University
of Petroleum and Minerals. Dhahran, Saudi Arabia for this work.
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