CFD AND CONJUGATE HEAT TRANSFER ANALYSIS OF HEAT SINKS WITH DIFFERENT FIN GEOMETRIES SUBJECTED TO FOCED CONVECTION USED IN ELECTRONICS COOLING

Abstract

Heat sinks are commonly used for cooling of electronic devices. Heat sinks, an array of heat fins, remove the heat from the surfaces of the chips by enhancing the heat Transfer rate through heat conduction process. Heat can also be removed from the chip surfaces through forced convection heat transfer. In this project work, CFD and conjugate heat transfer analysis is carried out for various fin geometries with Zigzag, Fluted, Slanted mirror, Custom pin fin and staggered array configurations for low thermal resistance and minimum pressure drop. Numerical simulations are carried out for each of the above mentioned fin geometries with common base plate thickness of 2 mm, fin height of 28 mm and fin thickness of 1 mm for three different heat loads namely 50 W, 75 W and 100 W with air flow of 3.933 m/s (15 ft3/min or 15 CFM) and air inlet temperature of 25 o C. The results are compared for thermal performance of a heat sink for each of above geometries and it is observe that the fin with Slanted Mirror geometry gives the best performance among all the other geometries for minimum Pressure drop. The average heat transfer coefficients for fins with slanted mirror geometry, zig zag configuration, fluted type, custom pin fin and staggered array are found to be 215 W/m2K, 164 W/m2K, 164 W/m2K, 157 W/m2K and 145 W/m2K respectively