Performance of rectangular pin-fin heat sink subject to an impinging air flow
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Mustansiriyah, Baghdad, Iraq
J Ther Eng 2021; 7(3): 666-676 DOI: 10.18186/thermal.889174
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Abstract

The heat sink is used to enhance heat rejection from heated surface to air. The seize and the geometry of the heat sink with the shape of the extended surfaces have a great influence on the heat transfer coefficient. The first step to get the optimal design is to predict the heat transfer by conduction in solid walls of heat sink and then by convection between the solid and air flow. The purpose of the present study is to predict the effectiveness of closely spaced parallel rectangular fin array arrangement. The electronic processor was represented by the copper heat sink base with thermal conductivity of 401 W/m.K. The 72 fins with the geometry above mentioned were exposed to heat transfer with conduction and convection along all the boundaries except the bottom from which heat flow toward air flow domain. Mesh generation at a specific cells, number of element and number of nodes were taken under temperature difference validation. The experiments were done under impinging air flow rate with Reynolds number ranged between 4000-16000. The flow was turbulent so the k-Ԑ turbulence model needed to simulate mean flow characteristics. Constant heat fluxes boundary conditions were proposed with range between 10000-70000 kW/m2. The Results of temperature contour lines depicted a heat trend from the hot base through the extended surfaces to the fin tips. The fins were aligned in the core of heat sink showed higher temperature gradient compared with the fins existed in lines surrounded the core. The thermal resistance decreased as the Reynolds number increased and the Nusselt number increased as the Reynolds number increased and also when the heat flux increased. The Reynolds number depicted increasing as the Nusselt number increased and so the heat rejected from the heat sink base increased. There is a good agreement between the experimental and simulating results at error percentage not exceed 2%.