Enhanced Forced Convection Cooling of Power Electronics Devices Exposed to Hot Climatıc Conditions by Copper Metal Foam

Abstract

In many geographic locations, summer climatic conditions are relatively hot. Higher surrounding air temperature and self-heat generation of high-power electronics device create a challenge for an engineer to design an efficient heat dissipation system for such devices. Worldwide photovoltaic power plants installed in large number and inverters are one of the primary functional power electronics devices in these systems. Due to exposure to the hot environment, especially in summer functioning failures of such power electronics systems are reported. So there is a need to explore efficient heat dissipation methods for these types of devices. In this direction extensive experimentation is carried out with 40 PPI, 50PPI, 60 PPI open cell copper metal foam in Forced Convection. Copper open cell metal foam samples are tested with various heat inputs and air velocities to understand thermofluid characteristics and its effect on different parameters. Effect of variables temperature and velocity on various parameters like Reynold number, Nusselt no, Solid to fluid Convective heat transfer coefficient were investigated. Various properties of metal foam such as PPI, Diameter of the pore, and Diameter of fiber have a significant effect on permeability and convective solid to fluid heat transfer coefficient. Experimental results are studied and observed that open cell Cu metal foams are an excellent choice for the forced convection heat dissipation in high power electronics devices.