Thermal Performance of Plate Heat Sinks with Dimples

Abstract

Thermal mismanagement has been identified as the leading cause of electronic chip or processor failures. In this article, the influence of adding dimples to standard plate heat sink configuration for heat transfer enhancement is analyzed. A constant temperature load of 403 K is added to heat sink base and the analysis is done in a forced convention scenario computationally for 12 different heat sink designs at nine different velocities (0.5–4.5 m/s) by considering heat transfer, pressure drop, thermal resistance, and effectiveness of heat sink as the performance variables. Experimental results are used to validate computational results. The results reveal that dimpled heat sink have about 25% improvement in heat transfer with 26% less thermal resistance than non-dimpled heat sinks at air velocities greater than 1.5 m/s. Thermal performance deteriorated by up to 8.3% for dimpled heat sinks at air velocities less than 1.5 m/s. Hence, the use of dimples in heat sinks is the potential approach for the thermal management of processors.