The drive toward miniaturization and high integration in microelectromechanical systems has led to unprecedented heat flux generation, creating critical challenges in thermal management. This has encouraged the use of mini-channel heat sinks, with design modifications involving various fluids and flow speeds. While wavy mini-channels have shown improved efficiency in laminar flows, their
... [Show full abstract] performance under turbulent conditions remains unexplored. This study addresses this gap, highlighting their potential for advanced heat transfer applications. In the present study, a numerical comparative study of straight, convergent and divergent mini-channels with and without undulations has been performed in the turbulent range of Reynolds number (Re) 3200–6400, using finite element method. Also, the influence of changing the number of undulations has been studied for three cases: n = 1 (8 undulations), n = 2 (16 undulations), and n = 3 (24 undulations). Thermal resistance, Temperature Uniformity Factor, Thermal Performance Index (η), and Augmented Entropy Generation Numbers (AEG) are used to assess the performance of the system. The study shows that the convergent wavy mini-channels (CWMCHs) produce superior temperature uniformity and CWMCH-n = 3 exhibits the lowest thermal resistance and the maximum Nusselt number (Nu) in comparison with other cases. Among all the mini-channels, the simple divergent mini-channel (SDMCH) exhibits the least pressure drop. The results also demonstrate that simple wavy mini-channel-n = 3 (SWMCH-n = 3) performs best, on account of minimal irreversibilities, with a minimum AEG of 0.378 at Re = 3200. Lastly, the thermal performance index calculation shows that SDMCH presents a maximum η of 4.10.