The effect of fin design on thermal performance of heat sink

Abstract EN

An experimental and computational study is conducted to analyze the thermal performance of heat sinks and to pick up more profound information in this imperative field in the electronic cooling.

One important approach to improve the heat transfer on the air-side of the heat exchanger is to adjust the fin geometry.

Experiments are conducted to explore the impact of the changing of diverse operational and geometrical parameters on the heat sink thermal performance.

The working fluid used is air.

Operational parameters includes: air Reynolds number (from 23597 to 3848.9) and heat flux (from 3954 to 38357 W/m2).

Conformational parameters includes: change the direction of air flow and the area of conduction/convection.

Six parallel plate heat sinks are fabricated and tested in small wind tunnel: flat plate, cross-cut, perforated, perforated cross-cut, zigzag and serpentine.

Three-dimensional numerical simulations using commercial available FLUENT 15 software, based on the Navier–Stokes equations standard k-ε applied turbulence model and energy equation, are acquired for forced convection of air in same heat sinks under the same experimental conditions.

It is found that the numerical prediction of base temperature is in good agreement with experimental data.

Results show that the Reynolds number has a significant effect on the thermal performance of the system.

With increasing free stream velocity, the heat transfer coefficient increases and consequently the thermal resistance decreases.

Furthermore, it is found that the heat transfer coefficient and thermal resistance are depending on heat flux.

From the comparison analysis of various geometries of heat sinks, the perforated-cut heat sink showed the best thermal performance indicated heights Nusselt number and heat transfer coefficient, lowest thermal resistance.