CFD Analysis in a Heat Sink for Cooling of Electronic Devices

• Autores: R. Arularasan, R. Velraj
• Localización: International journal of the computer, the internet and management, ISSN 0858-7027, Vol. 16, Nº. 3 (SEP), 2008, págs. 1-11
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The reliability of electronic components is affected critically by the temperature at which the junction operates. As operating powers and speed increase, and as designers are forced to reduce overall system dimensions, the problems of extracting heat and controlling temperature can become crucial. The continuing increase of power densities in electronics packages and the simultaneous drive to reduce the size and weight of electronic products have led to an increased importance on thermal management issues in this industry. Plate fin heat sinks are commonly used devices for enhancing heat transfer in electronics components.. The choice of an optimal heat sink depends on a number of geometric parameters such as fin height, fin length, fin thickness, number of fins, base plate thickness, space between fins, fin shape or profile, material etc. Given a set of design constraints, one needs to determine the maximum possible performance of a heat sink within the constraints. Optimizing the above parameters to achieve low thermal resistance and low pressure drop is very difficult. In order to select the optimal geometric parameters of a heat sink for a particular application, a designer requires more design tools to predict heat sink performance. Therefore in this research work, to select an optimal heat sink design, preliminary studies on the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of a parallel plate heat sink have been carried through CFD modeling and simulations. The simulation is carried out with a commercial package provided by Fluent Inc. The geometric parameters considered in this study are fin height, fin thickness, base height and fin pitch. Experimental validation of simulation results also have been performed. In this study, the geometric parameters fin height, fin thickness, base height and fin pitch are found to be optimal at 48 mm, 1.6 mm, 8 mm and 4mm respectively for an efficient heat sink design.