Analysis of Fin Interruptions on the Natural Convection of Heat Sinks

Abstract

For heat sinks with high fins used in outdoor high-power electronic equipment, this paper proposes a natural convection heat transfer calculation method based on the chimney effect and uses this method and numerical simulation to analyze the heat transfer performance of the heat sinks with interrupted fins. Results show that the interrupted fins effectively improve the convective heat transfer coefficient of the fins by breaking the thermal boundary layer of the fins, and have a significant effect on the air flow between the fins. When the fin interruption length is 1mm and the number of interrupts is 15, the natural convection heat transfer performance of the heat sink is the best. Compared to heat sinks of the same size without interrupted fins, the thermal performance has been improved by 80% while reducing weight by 7%.