Longitudinal-Fin Heat Sink Optimization Capturing Conjugate Effects Under Fully Developed Conditions

Abstract

We develop a method requiring minimal computations to optimize the fin thickness and spacing in a fully shrouded longitudinal-fin heat sink (LFHS) to minimize its thermal resistance under conditions of hydrodynamically and thermally developed laminar flow. Prescribed quantities are the density, viscosity, thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity of the fluid, the thermal conductivity and height of the fins, the width and length of the heat sink, and the pressure drop across it. Alternatively, the length of the heat sink may be optimized as well. The shroud of the heat sink is assumed to be adiabatic and its base isothermal. Our results are relevant to, e.g., microchannel cooling applications where base isothermality can be achieved by using a heat spreader or a vapor chamber. The present study is distinct from the previous work because it does not assume a uniform heat transfer coefficient, but fully captures the velocity and temperature fields by numerically solving the conjugate heat transfer problem in dimensionless form using an existing approach. We develop a dimensionless formulation and compute a dense tabulation of the relevant parameters that allows the thermal resistance to be calculated algebraically over a relevant range of dimensionless parameters. Hence, the optimization method does not require the time-consuming solution of the conjugate problem. Once the optimal dimensionless fin thickness and spacing are obtained, their dimensional counterparts are computed algebraically. The optimization method is illustrated in the context of direct liquid cooling.