Structural design of a silicon six-wafer micro-combustor under the effect of heat transfer boundary condition at the outer walls

The objective of this paper is to establish a methodology for designing highly stressed micro fabricated structures. Some research results indicate that the flame burns in the recirculation jacket if the poor heat transfer coefficients at the outer wall are present, and that the combustion in the recirculation jacket possibly damages the micro-combustor due to the fact that silicon has relatively poor high temperature strength and creep resistance. In order to explore the structural design of the micro-combustor with the flame burning in the recirculation jacket, combustion characteristics of the combustor were analyzed using 2D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation, and then the 3D Finite Element Method was utilized for thermo-mechanical analysis on the combustor. The simulation results identified that the locations of the critical failure could possibly occur at the burning areas in the recirculation jacket. The results of this study can be used for the design and improvement of the micro-combustors.