Experimental study on the thermal response of PCM-based heat sink using structured porous material fabricated by 3D printing

Abstract

Phase change material (PCM) based heat sink has the potential to be applied for the thermal management of electronic devices. Whereas, PCM suffers from a low thermal conductivity, which results in local overheating at the base of heat sink. To enhance thermal performance of heat sink, a structured porous material (SPM) used as thermal conductivity enhancer (TCE) is designed and fabricated, where 3D printing technique is adopted to achieve the fast and precise manufacture of SPM. The thermal response of heat sink using SPM with different porosities (80%, 85%, 90%, and 95%) is experimentally investigated at various heating power levels (8 W, 10 W, and 12 W). Results show that the use of SPM has a significant effect on thermal response of heat sink for electronic cooling system. Furthermore, the thermal behavior of heat sink can be further heightened by reducing the porosity of SPM, e.g., the heat sink using SPM with 80% porosity shows the highest enhancement ratio in all cases of present study. The increase of power level can result in the reduction of operation time of PCM-based heat sink. This study is of great significance for the design and application of SPM used in thermal management unit.