  Compact and small-scale heat exchangers can handle high heat dissipation
rates due to their large surface area to volume ratios. Applications involving
high heat dissipation rates include, but are not limited to, compact
microelectronic processing units, high power laser arrays, fuel cells, as well
as fission batteries. Low maintenance cost, small size and dimensions, as well
as high convective heat transfer coefficients, make micro-scale heat sinks an
efficient and reliable cooling solution for applications with high heat
dissipation rates. Despite these advantages, the large pressure drop that
occurs within micro-scale heat sinks has restricted their utilization. Slip at
the walls of microchannels has been reported to reduce friction factor up to
30%, depending on the hydraulic diameter of the microchannel. Numerical
investigations are conducted to comprehensively investigate the effect of slip
at walls on friction factor and Nusselt number of liquid flows in micro-scale
heat sinks. At the same mass flow rate and inlet Reynolds number, obtained
results suggest that slip length on the order of 2 microns enhances the overall
thermalhydraulic performance of micro heat sinks by almost 6% in comparison
with no-slip boundary conditions. 4% increase is observed in channel average
Nusselt number while pumping power reduces by 8% in comparison with no-slip
boundary condition.
