Cooling Performance Comparisons of Five Different Plate-Pin Compound Heat Sinks Based on Two Different Length Scale

Author(s):  
Feng Zhou ◽  
David Geb ◽  
Ivan Catton

Plate fin heat sinks (PFHS) are widely used to remove heat from the microelectronic devices. In the present study, a new type of compound heat sink, named as plate-pin fin heat sink (PPFHS), is employed to improve the air cooling performance. With CFD numerical method, PPFHSs with five forms of pin cross-section profiles (square, circular, elliptic, NACA 0050, and dropform) and PFHS were simulated. Two different length scales were adopted to evaluate the performance of six types of heat sinks, including PFHS. One of the length scales is commonly used by many investigators, which is two times of the channel spacing. The other length scale is suggested by volume averaging theory (VAT), which is four times of average porosity divided by specific interface. The influence of pin fin cross-section profile on the flow and heat transfer characteristics was presented by means of Nusselt number, pressure drop and overall efficiency. It is found that the Nu number of a PPFHS is at least 35% higher than that of a PFHS used to construct the PPFHS at the same Reynolds number no matter which length scale was used. It is also revealed that the heat transfer enhancement of square PPFHS is offset by its excessively high pressure drop, which makes it not as efficient as the other types of PPFHS. Circular PPFHS performs similar to the streamline shaped PPFHS when the Reynolds number is not too high. However, with the increase in Re the advantage of the circular cross-section diminishes. Using the streamline shaped pins, not only the pressure drop of the compound heat sinks could be decreased considerably, the heat transfer enhancement also makes a step forward. However, evaluating the performance of heat sinks by using the commonly used length scale, the benefit of streamline shaped types of PPFHSs is a little bit overstated. The VAT suggested length scale is more reasonable to do the performance comparison of different heat sinks, especially when it is difficult to provide a fair and physically meaningful basis for the comparison. In short, the present numerical simulation provides original information of the influence of different pin-fin cross-section profiles on the thermal and hydraulic performance of the new type compound heat sink and emphasizes the importance of choosing a proper length scale when evaluating heat transfer enhancement, which is helpful in the design of heat sinks.

Author(s):  
Feng Zhou ◽  
Nicholas Hansen ◽  
Ivan Catton

The plate-pin fin heat sink (PPFHS) is composed of a plate fin heat sink (PFHS) and some pin fins planted between the flow channels. In this paper, a numerical investigation was performed to compare the thermal and hydraulic performances of the PPFHSs and PFHS. PPFHSs with five forms of pin cross-section profiles (square, circular, elliptic, NACA 0050, and dropform) were numerically simulated. The influence of pin fin cross-section profile on the flow and heat transfer characteristics was presented by means of Nusselt number and pressure drop. It is found that the Nu number of a PPFHS is at least 35% higher than that of a PFHS used to construct the PPFHS at the same Reynolds number. Planting circular and square pins into the flow channel of heat sinks enhances the heat transfer at the expense of high pressure loss. Using the streamline shaped pins, not only the pressure drop of the compound heat sinks could be decreased considerably, the heat transfer enhancement also makes a step forward. The present numerical simulation provides original information of the influence of different pin-fin cross-section profiles on the thermal and hydraulic performance of the new type compound heat sink, which is helpful in the design of heat sinks.


Author(s):  
D. Sahray ◽  
H. Shmueli ◽  
N. Segal ◽  
G. Ziskind ◽  
R. Letan

In the present work, horizontal-base pin fin heat sinks exposed to free convection in air are studied. They are made of aluminum, and there is no contact resistance between the base and the fins. For the same base dimensions the fin height and pitch vary. The fins have a constant square cross-section. The edges of the sink are blocked: the surrounding insulation is flush with the fin tips. The effect of fin height and pitch on the performance of the sink is studied experimentally and numerically. In the experiments, the heat sinks are heated using foil electrical heaters. The heat input is set, and temperatures of the base and fins are measured. In the corresponding numerical study, the sinks and their environment are modeled using the Fluent 6 software. The results show that heat transfer enhancement due to the fins is not monotonic. The differences between sparsely and densely populated sinks are analyzed for various fin heights. Also assessed are effects of the blocked edges as compared to the previously studied cases where the sink edges were exposed to the surroundings.


Author(s):  
Reza Kamali ◽  
Bamdad Barari ◽  
Ashkan Abbasian Shirazi

In this study, Numerical analysis has been used to investigate entropy generation for array of pin-fin heat sink. Technique is applied to study the thermodynamic losses caused by heat transfer and pressure drop in pin-fin heat sinks. A general expression for the entropy generation rate is obtained by considering the whole heat sink as a control volume and applying the conservation equations for mass and energy with the entropy balance. Analytical and empirical correlations for heat transfer coefficients and friction factors are used in the numerical modeling. Also effects of heat transfer and pressure drop in entropy generation in control volume over pin-fins have been studied. Numerical analysis has been used for three different models of pin-fin heat sinks. The models are different in cross section area. These cross section areas are circle, horizontal ellipse and vertical ellipse which mentioned in next sections. Reference velocity used in Reynolds number and pressure drop is based on the minimum free area available for the fluid flow. Also for numerical analysis in-line arrangement of fins has been investigated and their relative performance is compared. At the end, the performance of these three models has been compared.


Author(s):  
D. Sahray ◽  
H. Shmueli ◽  
N. Segal ◽  
G. Ziskind ◽  
R. Letan

In the present work, horizontal-base pin fin heat sinks exposed to free convection in air are studied. They are made of aluminum, and there is no contact resistance between the base and the fins. The sinks have the same base dimensions whereas the fin height and pitch vary. The fins have a constant square cross-section. The effect of fin height and pitch on the performance of the sink is studied experimentally and numerically. In the experiments, the heat sinks are heated using foil electrical heaters. The heat input is set, and temperatures of the base and fins are measured. In the corresponding numerical study, the sinks and their environment are modeled using the Fluent 6.3 software. The results show that heat transfer enhancement due to the fins is not monotonic. The differences between sparsely and densely populated sinks are analyzed for various fin heights.


Author(s):  
Evan Small ◽  
Sadegh M. Sadeghipour ◽  
Mehdi Asheghi

In a design competition by the mechanical engineering students at Carnegie Mellon University, which was the design of heat sinks for electronic cooling applications, twenty seven heat sinks were designed and tested for thermal performance. A heat sink with three rows of 9, 8, and 9 dimpled rectangular fins (staggered configuration) demonstrated the best performance in the test. This heat sink even had the least total volume (about 25% less than the set value). This paper reports on an effort made to verify and quantify the role of dimples on heat transfer enhancement of the heat sinks. This includes measurements and simulations of the thermal fluid properties of the heat sinks with and without dimples. Results of both the measurements and simulations indicate that dimples do in fact improve heat transfer capability of the heat sinks. Albeit, dimpled fins cause more pressure drop in air along the heat sink. Keeping the total volume of the heat sink and the height of the fins constant and changing the number of the fins and their arrangement show that there exist an optimum number of fins for the best performance of the heat sink. However, this number of fins is different for inline and staggered arrangements. To check the role of the roughness type on the heat transfer behavior of the fins, a heat sink with twenty-seven bumped fins with inline arrangement was also simulated. Results indicated that bumps increase both thermal resistance and pressure drop relative to that of the heat sinks with plain fins.


2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 895-903 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin-Cherng Shyu ◽  
Jhih-Zong Syu

This study examines various effects on the heat transfer enhancement of several vertical heat sinks with a running piezofan. Both plate-fin heat sink and pin-fin heat sink having a 10-mm-high or 30-mm-high fin array were tested with either a vertical or a horizontal piezofan. Results show that the piezofan tip located at x/L = 0.5 usually yielded the highest heat transfer enhancement. Besides, heat transfer enhancement factors ranged from 1.2 to 2.4 for the present 10-mm-high plate-fin heat sink, and from 1.1 to 2.6 for the 10-mm-high pin-fin heat sink.


Author(s):  
Eric D. Truong ◽  
Erfan Rasouli ◽  
Vinod Narayanan

A combined experimental and computational fluid dynamics study of single-phase liquid nitrogen flow through a microscale pin-fin heat sink is presented. Such cryogenic heat sinks find use in applications such as high performance computing and spacecraft thermal management. A circular pin fin heat sink in diameter 5 cm and 250 micrometers in depth was studied herein. Unique features of the heat sink included its variable cross sectional area in the flow direction, variable pin diameters, as well as a circumferential distribution of fluid into the pin fin region. The stainless steel heat sink was fabricated using chemical etching and diffusion bonding. Experimental results indicate that the heat transfer coefficients were relatively unchanged around 2600 W/m2-K for flow rates ranging from 2–4 g/s while the pressure drop increased monotonically with the flow rate. None of the existing correlations in literature on cross flow over a tube bank or micro pin fin heat sinks were able to predict the experimental pressure drop and heat transfer characteristics. However, three dimensional simulations performed using ANSYS Fluent showed reasonable (∼7 percent difference) agreement in the average heat transfer coefficients between experiments and CFD simulations.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. J. Lee ◽  
P. S. Lee ◽  
S. K. Chou

Sectional oblique fins are employed, in contrast to continuous fins in order to modulate the flow in microchannel heat sinks. The breakage of a continuous fin into oblique sections leads to the reinitialization of the thermal boundary layer at the leading edge of each oblique fin, effectively reducing the boundary layer thickness. This regeneration of entrance effects causes the flow to always be in a developing state, thus resulting in better heat transfer. In addition, the presence of smaller oblique channels diverts a small fraction of the flow into adjacent main channels. The secondary flows created improve fluid mixing, which serves to further enhance heat transfer. Both numerical simulations and experimental investigations of copper-based oblique finned microchannel heat sinks demonstrated that a highly augmented and uniform heat transfer performance, relative to the conventional microchannel, is achievable with such a passive technique. The average Nusselt number, Nuave, for the copper microchannel heat sink which uses water as the working fluid can increase as much as 103%, from 11.3 to 22.9. Besides, the augmented convective heat transfer leads to a reduction in maximum temperature rise by 12.6 °C. The associated pressure drop penalty is much smaller than the achieved heat transfer enhancement, rendering it as an effective heat transfer enhancement scheme for a single-phase microchannel heat sink.


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