Thermal management of electronic chips using microencapsulated phase change material slurry in a taenidia-inspired spiral channel heat exchanger

This study presents the design, optimization, and experimental validation of a novel spiral channel heat exchanger aimed at enhancing the heat dissipation capability of electronic and microelectronic devices that generate ultra-high heat fluxes. Inspired by the superior cooling potential of microchannel heat exchangers and the excellent thermal performance provided by microencapsulated phase change material (MPCM) slurry, the present study presents a novel spiral channel configuration in which MPCM slurry flows through a helical structure to further improve heat transfer efficiency and provide a potential design reference for advanced cooling systems. A comparative numerical analysis between straight and spiral channels was conducted to verify the effect of the spiral microchannel. Heat transfer enhancement was achieved by investigating the effects of thread width, thread angle, and thread height on thermal and hydraulic performance. The heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop were used to calculate Nusselt number, friction factor, and a comprehensive performance evaluation factor to identify that the optimal design configuration can be obtained with a thread angle of 40^° and a thread width-to-height ratio of 1.6. Furthermore, the comparison between pure water and 10% MPCM slurry as working fluids using the equivalent specific heat capacity model reveals that the inclusion of MPCM can significantly improve both thermal and hydraulic performance, achieving a maximum enhancement of 77.54% in the overall performance index at an inlet velocity of 0.2m/s under a constant heat flux of 15 kW/m². This enhancement reflects a significant improvement in heat transfer performance accompanied by an increase in pressure drop. Finally, the optimized spiral channel was fabricated via metal 3D printing, and the experimental results have confirmed that the proposed novel spiral channel heat exchanger exhibits superior heat transfer performance compared with conventional straight and pin-fin-enhanced channels, demonstrating its strong potential for efficient thermal management for next-generation electronic cooling applications.