Heat Transfer Studies with PCM as Thermal Interface Material

Abstract

AbstractThe thermal management of high-performance electronics products, chips, and equipment needs to enhance the heat removal rate to minimize operating temperature and better function. One of the best solutions for thermal management is thermal interface material (TIM). Thermal contact conductance at the interfaces may be extensively enhanced by using TIMs such as thermal pastes, phase change materials (PCM), metallic foils, and metal coatings applied at the material contacts. In this work, an experimental study has been carried out on metallic contacts to enhance heat dissipation and thermal contact conductance (TCC) by applying TIM. The axial heat flow experiments are carried out under an atmospheric environment with copper and aluminum contacts for varying contact pressures (0.1–0.4 MPa) and interface temperatures (39–65 °C) to meet the specifications of the electronic industry. In this study, PCM (paraffin wax) has been tested and compared with conventionally used thermal interface material, i.e., silicon grease, for a range of interface pressure and heating conditions. Eventually, thermal contact conductance and heat dissipation results for both thermal interface materials have been compared with those for bare metallic contacts. Results show that PCM improves the heat dissipation and TCC compared to bare contacts, but enhancement is lesser than silicon grease. Yet, PCM is found more economic than silicon grease. Further, the results also present the temperature limitations of PCM and silicon grease. Uncertainty analysis has also been carried out to estimate the maximum error in the data of heat flux and TCC. Therefore, the present work demonstrates the applicability and suitability of the selected TIMs which may be relevant in thermal management applications for the selected range of interface pressure and temperature conditions.KeywordsElectronic coolingThermal contact conductanceHeat dissipationThermal interface materialPCM