Experimental Measurements of the Flow and Heat Transfer of a Square Jet Impinging on an Array of Square Pin Fins

Abstract

An experimental investigation was conducted to explore the flow behavior, pressure drop, and heat transfer due to free air jet impingement on square in-line pin fin heat sinks (PFHS) mounted on a plane horizontal surface. A parametrically consistent set of aluminum heat sinks with fixed base dimension of 25 × 25 mm was used, with pin heights varying between 12.5 mm and 22.5 mm, and fin thickness between 1.5 mm and 2.5 mm. A 6:1 contracting nozzle having a square outlet cross sectional area of 25 × 25 mm was used to blow air at ambient temperature on the top of the heat sinks with velocities varying from 2 to 20 m/s. The ratio of the gap between the jet exit and the pin tips to the pin height, the so-called tip clearance ratio, was varied from 0 (no tip clearance) to 1. The stagnation pressure recovered at the center of the heat sink was higher for tall pins than short pins. The pressure loss coefficient showed a little dependence on Re, increased with increasing pin density, and pin diameter, and decreased with increasing pin height and clearance ratio. The overall base-to-ambient thermal resistance decreased with increasing Re number, pin density and pin diameter. Surprisingly, the dependence of the thermal resistance on the pin height and clearance ratio was shown to be mild at low Re, and to vanish at high Re number.