TY  - EJOU
AU  - Wen, Guang 
AU  - Liao, Wenling 
AU  - Lian, Shuaimei 
AU  - Liu, Pingping 

TI  - Numerical Study on Hydrothermal Characteristics and Entropy Generation of Composite Grooves in Various Microchannels
T2  - Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer

PY  - 2026
VL  - 24
IS  - 4
SN  - 2151-8629

AB  - 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 (<i>Nu</i> = 2.38) and the lowest entropy production (<math id="mml-ieqn-1"><msub><mi>S</mi><mrow><mi>G</mi></mrow></msub></math> = 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.
KW  - Various microchannels; simple grooves; composite grooves; hydrothermal performance; entropy generation

DO  - 10.32604/fhmt.2026.081270