Numerical simulation of thermal performance of porous metal heat sink for cooling the CPU

Abstract

The thermal design and use of a heat sink for cooling the central processing unit (CPU) of a compact laptop has become increasingly challenging mainly because of the difficulty of optimizing the configuration and modification of fin shapes under design constraints with the motive to achieve the minimum thermal resistance at a possible low-pressure drop. Despite many cooling technologies are designed to remove heat from the whole system, the primary objective of the thermal management of a microprocessor is to have the cooling module concentrated at a high hot spot density location to remove the heat instantly as soon as it is released.This paper presents the simulation study of thermal performance assessment of porous aluminum, which is used as a heat sink for cooling a laptop’s CPU. The Nusselt number evaluates the heat transfer rate of the heat sink. The parametric analysis of heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop due to increased porosity of heat sink and height of heat sink are investigated. CFD simulations show that the porous aluminum heat sink's thermal performance is better than the finned heat sink. Owing to the porous aluminum heat sink, the cooling of the CPU is more effective and under desired range as compared to that of the finned heat sink.