Experimental and Numerical Investigations of Heat Sink – Fan Combinations

Description

Heat Sink - Fan (HSF) combinations are a very well established method for electronic cooling. Despite the development of more efficient cooling methods, conventional air convective cooling techniques persist, since they are inexpensive, low-maintenance and function at high ranges of operating temperatures. Potential for heat transfer optimization still exists for HSF combinations, mainly due to three factors: the flow field produced by miniature axial and centrifugal fans is far from homogeneous, modern manufacturing methods allow for a cost-effective production of heat sinks with surface enhancements, and miniaturization of electronics can lead to highly localized heat sources. This talk presents experimental and numerical simulation data on the outlet flow field of electronic cooling fans as well as temperature measurement data of different heat sink – fan combinations. Particle-Image-Velocimetry measurements of the outlet flow field of centrifugal and axial electronic cooling fans are presented and discussed. Numerical simulation results obtained with different turbulence models are compared to these measurement results. An extensive heat sink measurement campaign has been conducted, where heat sinks with and without surface enhancements and distributed or locally heated base plates have been subjected to different flow situations produced by centrifugal and axial fans. A summary of these temperature measurements, an analysis of specific aspects of the results as well as comparisons to numerical simulations of selected cases are presented. This work has been supported by the LCM K2 Center within the framework of the Austrian COMET-K2 program.

Period	11 May 2023
Event title	E​RCOFTAC Spring Festival 2023
Event type	Conference
Location	AustriaShow on map