Thermal analysis of semi-circular pin fins for application in electronics cooling

Abstract

Efficient thermal energy management of a system is always a prime requirement for many equipment and industries. The performance of almost all devices are affected by the thermal conditions of the system, which also include the surroundings. Generation of heat is an unavoidable phenomenon for any device that runs on external power sources. The generated heat in such systems must be dissipated to the surrounding. It requires efficient utilization of the surface area with minimum flow losses in the system. It was always desirable to have a heat sink in the all devices that occupy minimum space with maximum effectiveness. The present work is an effort to analyze conjugate heat transfer physics in a 3-D system of aluminum pin fins, with air as the working fluid. A finite element solver, COMSOL 4.3a has been used in simulating a staggered pin fin arrangements placed over a base plate. The solver is validated using the empirical data of previous literature. The thermal analysis has been performed on semicircular pin fins with uniform cross section. Consideration is given to staggered arrangement of semicircular fins with various relative distances between two sections of a circle with various inlet velocities. Heat transfer coefficient, Nusselt number, skin friction coefficient and pressure coefficient are four parameters that are taken into consideration for analyzing all the fin geometries in the current study. The proposed shapes are designed to increase the wetted surface area by keeping the fin material volume constant.