Constructal theory of the minimum requirements for forced convection cooling solutions

The advances in microfluidics and microelectronics bring with them the need to provide new cooling solutions for many applications. A number of technologies are under development for forced convection cooling at the microscale. This short paper, through the new constructal theory of Bejan, presents the minimum velocity requirements of any such technology to be truly useful in a new design. Thus the theory presented in this paper, should form the first step in the design process of any new forced cooling technology for mini-micro scale applications. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the use of the constructal theory provides a heightened level of understanding to the problem of forced convection, while simultaneously deriving the empirical correlations proposed in the literature over the past number of decades.