Superposition method to investigate the thermal performance of heat sink with embedded heat pipes

This article utilizes the thermal performance experiment with superposition method to investigate the thermal performance of heat sinks with one and two pairs of embedded heat pipes. A heat sink with embedded heat pipes transfers the total heat capacity from the heat source to both the base plate and heat pipes, and then disperses heat into the surrounding air via the forced convection. The heat capacity carried by embedded heat pipes can be found using the thermal resistance analytical approach stated in this article. The results show that two and four heat pipes embedded in the base plate carry 36% and 48% of the total dissipated heat respectively; in addition, when the total heating power of the heat sink with two embedded heat pipes is 140 W, the total thermal resistance reaches its minimum value of 0.27 °C/W, while for the heat sink with four embedded heat pipes, when the total heating power is between 40 W and 240 W, the total thermal resistance is 0.24 °C/W, meaning that the thermal performance is better than that of heat sink with two embedded heat pipes.     

Ultralightweight Compact Heat Sinks With Metal Foams Under Axial Fan Flow Impingement

Experimental results of ultralightweight compact heat sinks with open-celled copper (Cu) foams under the impingement of axial fan flows are presented. The thermal resistance of the system and the pressure coefficient on heat sink base plate were measured, focusing on the influences of foam height (H_f ) and impinging distance between fan exit and base plate (H). With the impinging distance fixed at H/D = 0.5 (D being the fan diameter), it is demonstrated that an optimum foam height exists at H_f /D = 0.22, providing the lowest thermal resistance. Furthermore, with the foam height fixed at H_f /D = 0.22, reducing the impinging distance to the foam height level reduces the thermal resistance further. In comparison with conventional aluminum (Al) plate-fin heat sinks under identical flow conditions, the Cu foam heat sinks require only 30% of the weight and 50% of the volume to achieve a similar level of heat dissipation performance.     

Numerical Investigation of PCM Based Heat Sinks with Embedded Metal Foam/Crossed Plate Fins

Three-dimensional numerical models for phase change material based heat sinks equipped with thermal conductivity enhancers like aluminum metal foam and crossed plate fins are validated with the experimental data found in literature. For the aluminum metal foam embedded in the heat sink filled with phase change material, the porosity and the pores per inch of the metal foam were varied and natural convection currents were studied. Maintaining the volume fraction of the phase change material as a constant, the thermal performance enhancement as a result of the introduction of thermal conductivity enhancer into the heat sinks is determined.     

Effects of metal foam on exergy and entropy of nanofluids in a heat sink applied for thermal management of electronic components

To solve the high heat dissipation of the heat sink, a set of experimental device for the flow and heat transfer of the nanofluids through a heat sink filled with metal foam was established in this paper. The impacts of metal foam with diverse pore densities (PPI = 20, 30, 40), nanoparticle mass fractions (from β = 0.0 wt% to β = 0.5 wt%) and Reynolds numbers (Re = 414-1119) on the flow and heat transfer characteristics were investigated. In addition, the thermal and hydraulic properties were evaluated by the exergy efficiency and entropy generation. The conclusions displayed that the metal foam with a pore density (PPI = 40) is instrumental in strengthening the heat transfer under a certain porosity, and the heat sink under the working condition (β = 0.3 wt% and PPI = 40) possesses the best capacity of thermal performance. Nanofluids and metal foam (PPI = 40) can improve Nusselt number by 6.13% and 3.2% at most compared with water and metal foam (PPI = 20 and PPI = 30), respectively. Nanofluids with β = 0.3 wt% exhibit the highest exergy efficiency, and the metal foam with PPI = 40 shows the smallest entropy generation.     

Experimental investigations on thermal performance enhancement and effect of orientation on porous matrix filled PCM based heat sink

Thermal performance in terms of enhancement ratios and the effect of orientation of a copper porous matrix filled phase change material (PCM) based heat sink are experimentally studied in this paper. N-eicosane is used as the phase change material. A copper open cell metal foam, press fitted into an aluminium casing is the thermal conductivity enhancer. In PCM based heat sinks, low thermal conductivity associated with PCMs makes the use of enhancement techniques inevitable for better thermal performance. A plate heater with an overall dimension of 60 × 42 mm² with 2 mm thickness is used to mimic the heat generation in electronic chips. The effect of orientation of the heat sink on thermal performance is studied by developing a tracking system, capable of placing the heat sink at any specified orientation.     

Investigation of functionally graded metal foam thermal management system for solar cell

Concentrated photovoltaic cell (CPV) is a solar energy harvesting device that converts solar energy into electrical energy. However, the performance and efficiency of the CPV are heavily dependent on the temperature. Besides, nonuniformity of temperature distribution on the CPV will lead to thermal aging and affects the cycle life. Hence, an effective cooling system is required to remove excess heat generated to ensure that the CPV operates at optimum operating temperature with minimum variation of temperature. Metal foam is a new class of material that possesses huge potential for thermal management. In this study, a functionally graded metal foam is proposed for the CPV thermal management system. Computational thermal fluid dynamic analysis is conducted to investigate the effect of porosity and pore density on the flow field and thermal performance of the aluminum foam heat sink. The investigation results revealed that 10 PPI functionally graded aluminum foam heat sink with two stages of porosity gradient 0.794 and 0.682 produced the lowest pressure drop and highest thermal performance. Temperature difference of 3.9°C was achieved for a solar cell with total heat generation of 900 W under water mass flow rate of 20 gs⁻¹.     

A study of an LED backlight thermal module

The present study uses a heat sink plate to conduct natural convection in order to examine different areas of the heat sink and the effects of mounting different quantities of LEDs on the same surface on the thermal mechanism performance. Based on the experimental results, when a heat sink plate is arranged vertically, the channel flow between the fins is parallel to gravity. The LED substrate plate temperature is different from that at the end of the fin, and rises with the increase of total power. The thermal resistance rises slowly and then declines with the increase of LED electric power. As for temperature change of the LED substrate and at the end of the fin, when the temperature difference is increased, it also increases the natural convection thrust. For thermal resistance, the environmental thermal resistance at the bottom of the heat sink plate is lower than at the middle and top sections. These LED power emissions will be changed synchronously. Regarding the LED quantity control, the rate of increase is the highest for the heat sink plate with 30 pcs LED, and the temperature is very high for the heat sink plate with 45 and 60 pcs LEDs when the power approaches 1 W. Moreover, the rising rate is the lowest for the heat sink plate with 60 pcs LEDs. Depending on the brightness requirement, the illuminant is provided by 60 pcs LEDs to obtain a lower temperature so that the system can reduce the thermal protective design. Evidence shows that a high conductivity heat pipe embedded in the channel can provide a more uniform temperature distribution. The present study provides a further understanding on the influence of different illuminant densities on the heat sink structure and the temperature difference in an LED heat transfer device, in order to provide a reference for heat sink design of a backlight module and LED illuminant module evaluation. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ). DOI 10.1002/htj.20321     

Optimization of thermal performances and pressure drop of rectangular microchannel heat sink using aqueous carbon nanotubes based nanofluid

The present work focuses on analytical optimization of a rectangular microchannel heat sink using aqueous carbon nanotubes based nanofluid as coolant. The particles weight concentration used in this study is 0.01%. The density, the thermal conductivity and the rheological behavior of the nanofluid are experimentally investigated in order to evaluate the thermal resistance and the pumping power in microchannel under laminar flow. An analytical approach of optimization scheme was applied; it is compiled from a systematic thermal resistance model as an analysis method and the elitist non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA2). The effects of the temperature, the channel aspect ratio, the channel wall ratio and the use of aqueous carbon nanotubes based nanofluid on the thermal resistance and the pumping power are investigated. The optimized results showed that use of the nanofluid as a working fluid reduce the total thermal resistance and can enhance significantly the thermal performances of the working fluid at high temperatures.     

Thermal performance of aluminium‐foam CPU heat exchangers

This study investigates the performance of existing central processing unit (CPU) heat exchangers and compares it with aluminium‐foam heat exchangers in natural convection using an industrial set‐up. Kapton flexible heaters are used to replicate the heat produced by a computer's CPU. A number of thermocouples are connected between the heater and the heat sink being used to measure the component's temperature. The thermocouples are also connected to a data‐acquisition card to collect the data using LabVIEW program. The values obtained for traditional heat exchangers are compared to published data to validate experiments and set‐up. The validated set‐up was then utilized to test the aluminium‐foam heat exchangers and compare its performance to that of common heat sinks. It is found that thermal resistance is reduced more than 70% by employing aluminium‐foam CPU heat exchangers. The results demonstrate that this material provides an advantage on thermal dissipation under natural convection over most available technologies, as it considerably increases the surface‐area‐to‐volume ratio. Furthermore, the aluminium‐foam heat exchangers reduce the overall weight. Copyright © 2005 John wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experimental Investigation of the Thermal Performance of Graphite Foam for Evaporator Enhancement in Both Pool Boiling and an FC-72 Thermosyphon

High-conductivity graphite foam is investigated for use as a surface enhancement for improved thermal performance in both pool boiling and an FC-72 thermosyphon. The influences of heat load and fluid level on the overall system thermal performance including surface superheat, effective heat transfer coefficient, and thermal resistance are examined. The thermal resistance of the foam heat sink is found to be extremely low at a minimum of 0.024 K/W, well below that of many other methods. The featured low thermal resistance is the primary benefit of this system. The thermal resistance is found to rise with increasing heat flux, but still remains advantageously low and exhibits excellent potential for high heat flux dissipation with low surface superheat, making it suitable for thermal management of advanced electronics.     

Thermal Performance and Mechanics Characteristic for Double Layer Microchannel Heat Sink

Double layer micro-channel heat sink(DLMCHS) has been widely used in various electronic devices; however, the existence of the nonuniform thermal strain distribution in actual operation has adverse effect on the overall stability. In this paper, two optimized designs of DLMCHS with cutting baffles on top and bottom layers are presented based on the traditional DLMCHS. The heat transfer and thermal stress performance are numerically analyzed and compared with the traditional DLMCHS. The results indicate that cutting baffles of micro-channels remarkably improves heat transfer and thermal stress performance. The optimized design with cutting baffles on the bottom layer decreases thermal strain but deteriorates heat transfer performance. The model with cutting baffles on the top layer has better combined thermal strain and heat transfer performance, which reduces thermal strain by about 1.5 times and enhances heat transfer by about 26.5%. For the design with cutting baffles on the top board, adding metal foam in the inlet collector can decrease the total minimum thermal strain by 51.4% and maximum temperature by 1.4 K, and increase the Nusselt number by 15%. These results indicate that DLMCHS with cutting baffles on the top layer has great potential for thermal managements on electronic devices with high power density.     

Thermal performance of plate-fin vapor chamber heat sinks

Since vapor chambers exhibit excellent thermal performance, they are suited to use as bases of heat sinks. This work experimentally studies the thermal performance of plate-fin vapor chamber heat sinks using infrared thermography. The effects of the width, height and number of fins and of the Reynolds number on the thermal performance are considered. Experimental data are compared with corresponding data for conventional aluminum heat sinks. The results show that generated heat is transferred more uniformly to the base plate by a vapor chamber heat sink than by a similar aluminum heat sink. Therefore, the maximum temperature is effectively reduced. The overall thermal resistance of the vapor chamber heat sink declines as the Reynolds number increases, but the strength of the effect falls. The effect of the fin dimensions on the thermal performance is stronger at a lower Reynolds number. At a low Reynolds number, a suitable number of fins must be chosen to ensure favorable thermal performance of the vapor chamber heat sink. However, at a high Reynolds number, the thermal performance improves as the fin number increases.     

Modeling of double-layer triangular microchannel heat sink based on thermal resistance network and multivariate structural optimization using firefly algorithm

Abstract

The micro-channel heat dissipation system has minor specifications and good thermal conductivity per unit, which is the best choice for heat dissipation of micro-chips. By optimizing the cross section of microchannel, the heat exchange efficiency and temperature uniformity can be effectively improved. In this article, a double-layer triangular microchannel heat sink is proposed, which uniquely combines triangular cross section and double-layer structure to obtain a better heat dissipation performance. A new thermal resistance network model is established. At the same time, the model of pressure drop in microchannel heat sink is obtained by use of fluid theory. Taking thermal resistance and pressure drop as optimization objectives, the thermal resistance of double-layer triangular microchannel heat sink is 0.284?K/W and the pressure drop is 1386.89?Pa by using the firefly algorithm based on the Pareto optimal solution set, obtaining the optimal structural parameters. The thermal-flow-solid coupling simulation analysis shows that the thermal resistance and theoretical analysis error is 5.19%, and the pressure drop and theoretical analysis error is 9.49%, which can verify the accuracy of the thermal resistance network model. This article has a guiding significance for the thermal resistance analysis and heat dissipation improvement of non-rectangular cross section microchannel heat sinks.     

Materials and design development for bipolar/end plates in fuel cells

Bipolar/end plate is one of the most important and costliest components of the fuel cell stack and accounts to more than 80% of the total weight of the stack. In the present work, we focus on the development of alternative materials and design concepts for these plates. A prototype one-cell polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack made out of SS-316 bipolar/end plate was fabricated and assembled. The use of porous material in the gas flow-field of bipolar/end plates was proposed, and the performance of these was compared to the conventional channel type of design. Three different porous materials were investigated, viz. Ni–Cr metal foam (50 PPI), SS-316 metal foam (20 PPI), and the carbon cloth. It was seen that the performance of fuel cell with Ni–Cr metal foam was highest, and decreased in the order SS-316 metal foam, conventional multi-parallel flow-field channel design and carbon cloth. This trend was explained based on the effective permeability of the gas flow-field in the bipolar/end plates. The use of metal foams with low permeability values resulted in an increased pressure drop across the flow-field which enhanced the cell performance.     

Effect of the angle of inclination of a plate shield on the thermal and hydraulic performance of a plate-fin heat sink

Using CFD software FLUENT, we investigated the effect of the angle of inclination of a plate heat shield on the thermal and hydraulic performance of a plate-fin heat sink. The variation of this angle causes a substantial and complicated variation of the flow field in space both upstream and downstream near such a heat sink. This distinctive behavior modifies the pressure drop between the inlet and outlet of the investigated duct, but that variation influences only slightly the flow field in the space from fin to fin, and thus the thermal resistance of the heat sink. This trend is further smoothed with increasing Reynolds number and height of the heat sink. As a compromise between the demands of small thermal resistance and a small pressure drop, the angle of inclination of a plate heat shield must be chosen carefully.     

Performance analysis of a double-pass thermoelectric solar air collector

The thermoelectric (TE) solar air collector, sometimes known as the hybrid solar collector, generates both thermal and electrical energies simultaneously. A double-pass TE solar air collector has been developed and tested. The TE solar collector was composed of transparent glass, air gap, an absorber plate, thermoelectric modules and rectangular fin heat sink. The incident solar radiation heats up the absorber plate so that a temperature difference is created between the thermoelectric modules that generates a direct current. Only a small part of the absorbed solar radiation is converted to electricity, while the rest increases the temperature of the absorber plate. The ambient air flows through the heat sink located in the lower channel to gain heat. The heated air then flows to the upper channel where it receives additional heating from the absorber plate. Improvements to the thermal and overall efficiencies of the system can be achieved by the use of the double-pass collector system and TE technology. Results show that the thermal efficiency increases as the air flow rate increases. Meanwhile, the electrical power output and the conversion efficiency depend on the temperature difference between the hot and cold side of the TE modules. At a temperature difference of 22.8 °C, the unit achieved a power output of 2.13 W and the conversion efficiency of 6.17%. Therefore, the proposed TE solar collector concept is anticipated to contribute to wider applications of the TE hybrid systems due to the increased overall efficiency.     

Thermal analysis of CPU with CCC and copper base plate heat sinks using CFD

This paper describes experimental and theoretical investigations of heat sinks with different base plate material mounted on CPUs. The thermal model of the computer system with heat sinks which is created using Gambit (for preprocessing) and the simulation is carried out using Fluent (for solver execution and post processing). The following parameters are considered: fin thickness, fin height, and number of fins. Primarily in this paper different base plate thickness and base plate materials are optimized for maintaining the cost and thermal performance of a heat sink. In this research work, the thermal model of the computer system with a slot parallel plate fin heat sink design has been selected, and the fluid flow and thermal flow characteristics of heat sinks are studied. The slot parallel plate fin heat sinks have been used with copper base plates and carbon carbon composite (CCC) base plates to enhance the heat dissipation. The results and conclusion obtained in this present work are found to be in good agreement with numerical results. A complete computer chassis with slot parallel plate heat sinks is investigated varying the thickness of base plate, and the performances of the heat sinks are compared. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/htj ). DOI 10.1002/htj.20342     

Cooling performance of a microchannel heat sink with nanofluids

In this paper, the cooling performance of a microchannel heat sink with nanoparticle–fluid suspensions (“nanofluids”) is numerically investigated. By using a theoretical model of thermal conductivity of nanofluids that accounts for the fundamental role of Brownian motion, we investigate the temperature contours and thermal resistance of a microchannel heat sink with nanofluids such as 6 nm copper-in-water and 2 nm diamond-in-water. The results show that the cooling performance of a microchannel heat sink with water-based nanofluids containing diamond (1 vol.%, 2 nm) at the fixed pumping power of 2.25 W is enhanced by about 10% compared with that of a microchannel heat sink with water. Nanofluids reduce both the thermal resistance and the temperature difference between the heated microchannel wall and the coolant. Finally, the potential of deploying a combined microchannel heat sink with nanofluids as the next generation cooling devices for removing ultra-high heat flux is shown.     

Impingement jet hydrogen,air and CuH2O nanofluid cooling of a hot surface covered by porous media with non-uniform input jet velocity

In this paper, a numerical investigation is performed on the flow and thermal performance of a heat sink, covered with an open cell metal foam, under the influences of uniform and non-uniform velocity impinging jets. Hydrogen, air and Cu-water nanofluid are considered as the cooling fluids. Navier-Stokes PDEs including the porous drag induced terms – represented by Darcy-Brinkman-Forchheimer relation – in line with the energy equation, are transformed to a system of ordinary differential equations (ODE) through definition of non-dimensional parameter and similarity variables. The system of non-linear ODEs has been solved numerically and results are validated by comparison with those of a commercial software. Afterward, the influences of hydrodynamic variables, porous medium properties and nanofluid volume fraction on flow and heat transfer performance of the heat sink, have been scrutinized. Results presented in terms of non-dimensional velocity and temperature profiles, as well as the stream function, velocity and temperature contours. Results indicate that increasing the volume fraction of nanofluid have increased the heat transfer rate. In addition, under the constant heat sink inlet mass flow rate, the use of non-uniform impingement jet with decreasing velocity distribution improves the thermal performance of the heat sink.     

基于烟囱效应的通信基站热沉优化设计

利用数值模拟的方法,探究了烟囱效应对通信基站热沉自然对流散热的强化作用,对影响热沉散热性能的主要因素及其机理进行了分析,并以热沉热阻作为优化目标,通过优化翅片间距与隔板间隙的取值提升了热沉的散热性能。在优化设计过程中,通过模糊均值聚类对拉丁超立方抽样所得的样本点进行筛选,快速并有效的缩减了设计区间,使用Kriging模型对新设计区间内的均匀样本点进行拟合,构建了热沉热阻与设计变量间的代理模型,并结合遗传算法寻优,确定了最优设计参数取值。在最优参数布置下,相比于初始热沉,热沉的发热面温度降低了15.23 K,总热阻降低了34.29%。