Experimental results have been obtained for single-phase forced convection
in deep rectangular microchannels. Two configurations were tested, a single
channel system and a multiple channel system. The two systems are identica
l except for the lack of extended surfaces in the single channel system. In
the case of the multiple channel system the channels are 251 mu m wide and
the channel walls are 119 mu m thick. In both systems the channels are app
roximately 1000 mu m deep and define a projected area of 2.5 cm x 2.5 cm. A
ll tests were performed with deionized water as the working fluid, where th
e Reynolds number ranged from 173 to 12 900. The experimentally obtained lo
cal Nusselt number agrees reasonably well with classical developing channel
flow theory. Furthermore, the results show that, in terms of flow and heat
transfer characteristics, our microchannel system designed for developing
laminar flow outperforms the comparable single channel system designed for
turbulent flow. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.