Experimental study of jet impingement heat transfer with microencapsulated phase change material slurry

Highlights: • Jet impingement with MEPCM slurry is studied experimentally. • Latent heat of PCM core enhances the heat transfer of slurry compared with water. • Slurry behaves a high-efficiency heat transfer when jet distance is from 4 to 9.3. • Heat transfer enhancement is limited when the mass fraction of slurry is too high. • Optimum jet inlet temperature is lower than melting peak temperature of PCM core. Based on the heat dissipation requirement of high heat flux for electronic chips, this paper establishes a closed-cycle experimental system and investigates jet impingement heat transfer characteristics with a microencapsulated phase change material (MEPCM) slurry as the working fluid. The phase change properties of the MEPCM particles and the thermal properties of the MEPCM slurry are analysed. The effects of several key parameters on the heat transfer and pressure drop of jet impingement are also discussed. Experimental results show that a 10% mass fraction of MEPCM slurry may enhance jet heat transfer by 32.8% compared with water because of the latent heat absorption of the PCM core. The heat transfer enhancement will be limited for higher mass fractions of slurry. The slurry exhibits a high heat transfer efficiency when the jet distance is ΔL/D = 4–9.3. The convective heat transfer coefficient of the slurry first increases and then decreases as the jet inlet temperature increases, and the optimum jet inlet temperature is approximately 12.1 °C lower than the melting peak temperature. Jet temperatures that are too high or too low will lead to deterioration of heat transfer for the slurry. These findings can provide guidance for the design of heat dissipation systems using MEPCM slurries.