Experiments and Modeling of the Heat Transfer of In-Line Square Pin Fin Heat Sinks With Top By-Pass Flow
This paper presents experimental results on the heat transfer characteristics of in-line square pin fin heat sinks with and without top by-pass. A self-consistent set of aluminum heat sinks were utilized, where the pin height was varied from 12.5 mm to 22.5 mm, the pin pitch was varied from 3.4 mm to 5.8 mm and the base dimensions were kept fixed at 25 × 25 mm. The overall base to ambient thermal resistance was measured as a function of Reynolds number and bypass height. Experimental results were then compared with predictions based on a simple one-dimensional “two-branch by-pass model”. Comparisons were made with the data using heat transfer coefficients available in the literature for infinitely long tube bundles. It was shown that there is a good agreement between the temperature predictions based on the model and the experimental data at high approach velocities for tall heat sinks, however the discrepancy between the computations and experiments increases as the approach velocity and heat sink height decrease. The validated model was used to identify optimum pin spacing as a function of clearance ratio.