Open Access

ARTICLE

Numerical Study on Hydrothermal Characteristics and Entropy Generation of Composite Grooves in Various Microchannels

Guang Wen¹, Wenling Liao^1,2,*, Shuaimei Lian¹, Pingping Liu^1,*

1 School of Mechanical Engineering, Chengdu Technological University, Chengdu, China
2 Sichuan Engineering Research Center for Titanium Alloy Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Panzhihua, China

* Corresponding Authors: Wenling Liao. Email: ; Pingping Liu. Email:

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer 2026, 24(4), 10 https://doi.org/10.32604/fhmt.2026.081270

Received 27 February 2026; Accepted 15 April 2026; Issue published 31 August 2026

Abstract

In this work, FLUENT is used to systematically investigate the effects of two key factors on the hydrothermal performance and entropy generation within a mass flow rate range of 0.3–1.1 g/s: (1) the coupling modes between grooves (simple and composite) and microchannels (straight, convergent, and divergent), and (2) the cross-sectional shape of composite grooves. Results show that, compared with simple grooves, composite grooves induce stronger spiral fluid disturbances between the mainstream and near-wall zones, enhancing direct fluid impingement on groove walls and thus improving the cooling effect on the microchannel. Among the configurations, the coupling of composite grooves and converging microchannels (CG-R-CM) yields the highest Nusselt number (Nu = 2.38) and the lowest entropy production ($S_G$ = 0.0015) at a mass flow rate of 1.1 g/s, albeit with an exponential increase in pressure drop. In contrast, coupling of composite grooves with divergent microchannels (CG-R-DM) effectively reduces pressure drop, achieving a maximum hydrothermal performance (η) of 1.485. Furthermore, modifying the cross-sectional shape of composite grooves significantly improves heat transfer performance with only a slight increase in the pressure drop. The study provides design references for microchannel-composite groove coupling.

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Keywords

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