Experimental investigation of PCM based round pin-fin heat sinks for thermal management of electronics: Effect of pin-fin diameter

Adeel Arshad, Hafiz Muhammad Ali*, Shahab Khushnood, Mark Jabbal

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

196 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This experimental study presents the parametric analysis for the round pin-finned heat sinks subjected to steady heat densities for effective and reliable cooling of mobile electronic devices. Phase change material (PCM) namely paraffin wax is adopted as energy storage material and aluminum made round pin-fins are selected as thermal conductivity enhancers (TCEs). A constant volume fraction of 9% of round pin-fins is selected with pin diameter of 2mm,3mm and 4mm and input heat flux was provided from 1.6kW/m2 to 3.2kW/m2 with an increment of 0.4kW/m2. Three volume fractions of ψ=0.0,ψ=0.5 and ψ=1.0 of PCM amount are poured in each configuration of pin-finned heat sinks. A heat sink with no fin is chosen as a reference heat sink to quantify the effect of PCM and TCEs. The thermal performance of PCM filled heat sinks are analyzed to explore the effect of volumetric fractions of PCM, heat densities, pin diameter on latent heat phase, enhancement in operation time, heat capacity and thermal conductance. Three reference set point temperatures (SPTs) are chosen and results have evidenced that a 3mm pin diameter heat sink has best thermal performance.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)861-872
Number of pages12
JournalInternational Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
Volume117
Early online date21 Oct 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Enhancement ratio
  • Heat capacity
  • Heat Sink
  • Paraffin wax
  • Phase change material
  • Round pin-fin
  • Set point temperatures
  • Thermal conductance
  • Thermal conductivity enhancers

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