Conjugate Cooling of 3D Protruding Heaters with Laminar Flow in a Rectangular Channel

Abstract

The conjugate forced convection-convection heat transfer from 3D protruding heaters mounted on a conductive substrate of a horizontal rectangular channel was investigated numerically using the ANSYS/FluentTM 15.0 software. A uniform heat generation rate was assumed in the protruding heaters and the cooling was performed by means of a steady laminar airflow, with constant properties. At the channel entrance the flow velocity and temperature profiles were assumed uniform. The governing equations were solved numerically within a single domain through a coupled procedure by the Control Volumes Method with the SIMPLE algorithm. To obtain the numerical results, typical properties values and geometry dimensions found in forced convection cooling of electronics components mounted in a printed circuit board were used. The Reynolds number effects were investigated from 100 to 300. The airflow behavior around the 3D protruding heaters was shown with streamlines. The thermal parameters of interest, such as temperature distribution, local and average Nusselt numbers, local and average heat transfer coefficients, conjugate, convective, and overall thermal conductance, were found and compared, when possible, with the available results in the literature.