Thermal performance of graphene-aluminum based fins for heat sink application

Abstract

In this paper, a novel heat sink with graphene-aluminum based plate fins was investigated by numerical simulations. Single or multilayer graphene was grown on the surface of aluminum to create fins of the sink. The novel heat sinks offered better heat conduction, and their large surface areas increased the dissipation of the heat outside the structure. Heat and fluid flow in fin channels of different materials, involving Aluminum, Copper, and Pyrolytic Graphite, were studied to observe the effects of thermal conductivity on convective heat transfer in laminar internal flows. The results of the models were compared with that of the novel heat sink with graphene-aluminum based fins. Different optimization techniques have been explored in literature to arrive at optimal designs of the novel heat sink. A parametric analysis has been conducted to investigate the effect of the fin’s parameters. Numerical simulation of the novel sink shows that a high thermal conductivity can be achieved in comparison with those of heat sinks with aluminum or copper fins. A reduction in maximum temperature by 10.4% and an increase in specific heat by 43.4% were obtained in the optimum case, which makes the novel heat sink with graphene-aluminum based Fins a good candidate as a heat transfer.