THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

Khaled M Almohammadi

,

Bandar Awadh AlmohammadiORCID

,

Khairy Elsayed

,

H.a. Refaey

,

Mohamed A KaraliORCID

EFFECT OF UTILIZING ROUGHED SURFACES WITHIN A CURVED MICROCHANNEL HAVING CAVITIES ON THE THERMO-HYDRAULIC PERFORMANCE

ABSTRACT
Curved micro-channels with cavities have warranted significant interest from researchers due to their potential to improve the thermo-hydraulic performance of micro-scale hot components. However, there is a scarcity of information concerning the impact of using rough surfaces to such devices for heat transfer enhancement. To this focus, CFD simulations are conducted on a curved micro-channel featuring cavities and different surface roughness without identifying any symmetrical planes. The micro-channel comprises two curved segments, having a hydraulic diameter, Dh, of 0.3 mm. Aluminum serves as a solid material, whereas water functions as a coolant. Reynolds number, varies from 10-800. A constant heat flux of 30 kW/m² is applied. Three cases with varying surface roughness (Ks/D) are analyzed: 0%, 3%, and 9%. The findings indicated that using rough surfaces is helpful for effective turbulence-inducing through boundary-layer disturbing for heat transfer enhancement at low Reynolds number. An enhancement in heat transfer of 22.3% is observed, attributable to the roughness of 9% at Re = 800, compared to the smooth baseline scenario, while the overall performance improved by about 12.2%. Two correlations are developed as a function of Reynolds number and Ks/D for Nusselt and Poiseuille numbers, which are believed to be useful for designers of micro-channels.
KEYWORDS
Rough surfaces, Curved microchannel, Cavity, Heat Transfer Enhancement, pressure drop
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2025-07-29
PAPER REVISED: 2025-09-24
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2025-10-12
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2025-11-08
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI250729196A
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2026, VOLUME 30, ISSUE No. 3, PAGES [1765 - 1777]
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Effect of utilizing roughed surfaces within a curved microchannel having cavities on the thermo-hydraulic performance

© 2026 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence