The excellent thermophysical properties of supercritical CO2 (sCO2) close to the pseudocritical point make it possible to replace water as the coolant of microchannels in application of a high heat flux radiator. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method verified by experimental data is used to make a comparison of the thermal hydraulic behavior in CO2-cooled and of water-cooled microchannels. The operation conditions of the CO2-based cooling cases cover the pseudocritical point (with the inlet temperature range of 306~320 K and the working pressure of 8 MPa), and the water-based cooling case has an inlet temperature of 308 K at the working pressure of 0.1 MPa. The channel types include the straight and zigzag microchannels with 90°, 120°, and 150° bending angles, respectively. The analysis result shows that, only when the state of CO2 is close to the pseudocritical point, the sCO2-cooled microchannel is of a higher average heat convection coefficient and a lower average temperature of the heated surface compared to the water-cooled microchannel. The entropy generation rate of the sCO2-cooled microchannel can reach 0.58~0.69 times that of the entropy generation rate for the water-cooled microchannel. Adopting the zigzag structure can enhance the heat transfer, but it does not improve the comprehensive performance represented by the entropy generation rate in the sCO2-cooled microchannel.
Keywords: computational fluid dynamics; entropy generation rate; heat transfer; microchannel; supercritical CO2.