The challenge to measure single-phase convective heat transfer coefficients in microchannels

The determination of local convective heat transfer coefficients in microfluidics is a very hard task. Due to the small dimensions of channels and walls, the use of conventional measurement techniques is only partially suitable in microfluidics. For this reason, a strong effort has been made during the last decades in order to propose innovative techniques which use internal (to microdevices) sensors of reduced dimensions and/or external conventional sensors. In this paper a review of the main experimental techniques proposed for the determination of the local near-wall fluid temperature, the local wall temperature, and the local fluid bulk temperature will be given by putting in evidence for each technique's positive and negative aspects as well as their actual limitations with the aim to stimulate and address the research on this topic in the near future. The problems and the limitations existing nowadays for the accurate measurements of the local thermal properties of a convective microflow demonstrate that for the analysis of microconvection experimental data have to be always integrated by a numerical modeling of the observed system.