Force Convection Performance of the Heat Sink with Embedded Heat Pipes Comparing Two Embedding Technologies for Heat Pipes

Abstract

This study investigates the performance of 12mm copper water heat pipes embedded on horizontally oriented heat sinks under forced convection mode. Experimental and numerical studies are conducted for a blank heat sink (heat sink without heat pipe) and two identical embedded heat pipe heat sinks using two different embedding technologies as follow: 1) The first heat sink prototype consists of a heat pipe heat sink that has embedded heat pipes located in the center of its base plate thickness by means of gun drilling. 2) The second heat sink prototype consists of a heat pipe heat sink that has embedded heat pipes mounted flush with the surface of the base plate. The blank heat sink is used to benchmark the performance of the embedded heat pipe heat sinks experimentally and numerically. Four heater blocks are used to represent a standard IGBT module size 140mm x 102mm. Forced convection experiment test is done for air flow range from 5 to 50 m3/min and total power dissipation of 2kW applied through four heat load locations, heat flux of 3.43 W/cm2. The experimental results of the embedded heat pipe heat sinks show minimal thermal performance difference between the surface embedded heat pipe heat sink and internally embedded heat pipe heat sink. Both embedded heat pipe heat sinks show an improvement of 28% over the blank heat sink. The standard vapor core model available in Qfin6.1.8 was used to simulate the performance of the embedded heat pipes. The simulation model for forced convection was found to be in good agreement within less than 10% of the experimental results.