Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Convective Heat Transfer From Notched Fin Arrays With Pin Fins

Abstract

In electronic components, it is essential to provide for adequate cooling to ensure that overheating does not affect the performance. It has been observed that for short fins, (L/H ≤ 5) due to formation of stagnant zone, central portion of fin is ineffective. To overcome this problem central portion from plate fin is removed. By doing so average heat transfer coefficient of notched array was improved almost by 30percentage compared to normal plate fin array. In this study we present computational assessment of notched plate fin heat sink (NPFHS) & notched plate fin pin fin heat sink (NPFPFHS). Based on NPFHS, a NPFPFHS is constructed which is composed of a NPFHS and some columnar pins planted between notched plate fins. Limited experimentation is carried out for validation of numerical model. Numerical analysis is carried out to compare thermal performance of these two types of heat sinks under the condition of equal temperature difference between mean sink temperature and ambient temperature. The effects of fin spacing, fin height, pin fin diameter and temperature difference between fin and surroundings on the free convection heat transfer from horizontal fin arrays were studied. The analysis have been carried out for the two types of heat sinks with three different spacing, three different height, four temperature differences and three pin diameters.