Thermal control performance evaluation of a phase change material-based heat sink for the electronic device suffering transient heat flux shock

Abstract

To solve the instantaneous thermal shock of electronic devices suffering transient heat flux, a phase change material-based heat sink is designed. The thermal control performance on the maximum temperature, phase change material liquid volume fraction, energy storage rate of the phase change material, natural convection heat transfer between the system and surrounding air, and temperature control efficiency is studied. Results show that in comparison to the heat sink without phase change material, the maximum temperature of the phase change material-based heat sink can be reduced by approximately 10 K. When the phase change material is filling outside the fins, optimum thermal performance can be achieved. For these three PCM and fin combinations, an outstanding temperature control efficiency can be achieved by the fin outside filling scheme, which is about 19%. The temperature control ability is restrained as the electrical device is situated at an angle with a vertical direction. As the orientation increases from 0° to 30°, 60°, and 90°, the average flow velocity decreases by 7.12%, 50.6%, and 75.7%, respectively. In addition, when the dimensionless phase change material filling size is 0.3, a relatively excellent heat transfer performance can be achieved.