Numerical study on layout of micro-channel heat sink for thermal management of electronic devices

Abstract

Aiming at improving the structures of micro-channel heat sinks for chip cooling techniques, four types of heat sinks, including traditional micro-channel (TMC) heat sink, rectangle column fin heat sink, single-hole jet-cooling heat sink and double-layer micro-channel heat sink were modelled. And the characteristics of flow and heat transfer in these heat sinks were investigated by numerical method. The numerical results show that the layout of microchannel heat sink is very important to the fluid flow and heat transfer. It is positive for improving thermal performance to fill metal foam in the inlet header by strengthening flow distribution uniformity. In comparison to traditional microchannel rows, the pin-fin array way of microchannel arrangement will strengthen the thermal performance of the overall heat sink due to the better field coordination characteristic. Although the jetting cooling heat sink technology possesses the best chip cooling capacity, it is not proposed for the field of microchannel cooling because of a huge flowing resistant. The double-layer structure with the inlet at the bottom layer processes the second-best cooling capability at the cost of an acceptable large pressure drop. In general, under the same pumping power, there is substantial development potential on the traditional micro-channel heat sink with metal-foam inlet header and rectangle column fin micro-channel heat sink.