Experimental and numerical study on temperature control performance of phase change material heat sink

Abstract

With the increasing power consumption of electronic products, the rising temperature leads to the deterioration of working environment and the reduction of service life. In order to control the temperature rise of electronic products, in this paper, the heat sinks with phase change material (PCM) and honeycomb metal were designed. And their performance was compared with that of the original heat sink (without PCM and honeycomb metal) then studied under various working conditions. Paraffin (n-eicosane) and prepared low melting point alloy were filled into the heat sink with honeycomb metal. The temperature control performance of heat sink was tested experimentally under different heating power. A two-dimensional heat transfer mathematical model of honeycomb metal PCM heat sink was established and solved numerically. The numerical results were compared with experimental data to verify the mathematical model. The results demonstrate that PCM heat sinks effectively controls the temperature of electronic devices and the low melting point alloy makes heat sink better performance than paraffin. Honeycomb metal further decreases the temperature of the paraffin heat sink by up to 3.6 °C, and extends the effective working time of the alloy heat sink by 14 %. The performance of the low melting point honeycomb metal heat sink is superior to that of the paraffin honeycomb metal heat sink at high heating power, and is close to the latter at low heating power. The effective working time of PCM honeycomb metal heat sink is significantly extended when the PCM melting point is close to the limit temperature, especially at high heating power and for the PCM with low thermal conductivity. This study provides valuable reference for temperature control design of electronic products.