Effect of surface roughness on rarefied-gas heat transfer in microbearings

In this Letter, the rarefaction and roughness effects on the heat transfer process in gas microbearings are investigated. A heat transfer model is developed by introducing two-variable Weierstrass-Mandelbrot (W-M) function with fractal geometry. The heat transfer problem in the multiscale self-affine rough microbearings at slip flow regime is analyzed and discussed. The results show that rarefaction has more significant effect on heat transfer in rough microbearings with lower fractal dimension. The negative influence of roughness on heat transfer found to be the Nusselt number reduction. The heat transfer performance can be optimized with increasing fractal dimension of the rough surface. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Slip flow and heat transfer in microbearings with fractal surface topographies

The effects of random surface roughness on slip flow and heat transfer in microbearings are investigated. A three-dimensional random surface roughness model characterized by fractal geometry is used to describe the multiscale self-affine roughness, which is represented by the modified two-variable Weierstrass- Mandelbrot (W-M) functions, at micro-scale. Based on this fractal characterization, the roles of rarefaction and roughness on the thermal and flow properties in microbearings are predicted and evaluated using numerical analyses and simulations. The results show that the boundary conditions of velocity slip and temperature jump depend not only on the Knudsen number but also on the surface roughness. It is found that the effects of the gas rarefaction and surface roughness on flow behavior and heat transfer in the microbearing are strongly coupled. The negative influence of roughness on heat transfer found to be the Nusselt number reduction. In addition, the effects of temperature difference and relative roughness on the heat transfer in the bearing are also analyzed and discussed. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

LES of heat transfer in electronics

Numerical methods based on the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) equations are applied to the thermal prediction of flows representative of those found in and around electronics systems and components. Low Reynolds number flows through a heated ribbed channel, around a heated cube and within a complex electronics system case are investigated using linear and nonlinear LES models, hybrid RANS-LES and RANS-Numerical-LES (RANS-NLES) methods. Flow and heat transfer predictions using these techniques are in good agreement with each other and experimental data for a range of grid resolutions. Using second order central differences, the RANS-NLES method performs well for all simulations. © 2011 Elsevier Inc.