Parametric study on the effect of end walls on heat transfer and fluid flow across a micro pin-fin

Micro heat sinks have a broad applicability in many fields such as aerospace applications, micro turbine cooling, micro reactors, electronics cooling, and micro biological applications. Among different types of micro heat sinks, those with micro pin-fins are becoming popular due to their enhanced heat removal performance. However, relevant experimental data in current literature is still scarce to adequately explain their differences from their macro size counter parts. In previous studies in literature, it was shown that thermal and hydrodynamic characteristics of micro pin-fin heat sinks are strongly affected by height over diameter (H/D) ratio of pin-fins. To address the lack of information about this subject, the objective of this work is to show how velocity boundary layer around pin-fins and consequently, the thermal and hydrodynamic characteristics are affected when H/D ratio and local Reynolds number (Re) vary.