Geometrical effects of pins in a center cleared heat sink on thermal management of electronic systems

Abstract

Thermal management of electronic components is becoming popular due to the extensive applications of electronic components in modern machines and automobiles. Natural convection heat transfer is preferred for electronic cooling in the unavailability of power supply or where high energy efficiency is desirable. Pin fin heat sinks offer effective cooling of such electronic devices even with the natural convection mode. Center-cleared pin-fin heat sinks offer better thermal management of a heated surface compared to conventional pin-fin heat sinks. The present work numerically investigates the thermal characteristics of center cleared solid cylinder, solid tapered, hollow tapered, and perforated hollow tapered pin fin heat sinks under natural convection. The numerical results are discussed in the form of steady state base temperature, heat transfer coefficient, mass-multiplied thermal resistance, volumetric heat dissipation rate, and effectiveness of different pin fin heat sink designs under varying power input from 2.15 to 10.75 W. The minimum mass-multiplied thermal resistance (RThM) is found to be 0.11 K.kg/W and the maximum volumetric heat dissipation rate is 1750.3 KW/m3 corresponding to the perforated hollow tapered pin fin heat sink design.