Computational Analysis of Natural Convection Heat Transfer in Horizontal Rectangular Plate Fin Array with Pin Fins


Sunil V. Dingare1, Narayan K. Sane2 and Ratnakar R. Kulkarni3

1Professor of Mechanical Engineering, KJCOEMR, Pisoli, Pune 411 048, India and Research Scholar - VIT, Pune 411 037, India.

svdingare@hotmail.com

2Adjunct Professor of Mechanical Engineering, VIT, Pune 411 037, India.

narayan_sane@yahoo.co.in

3Professor & Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department, VIT, Pune 411 037, India.

hodmech@vit.edu

ABSTRACT

In general, the sole objective of improving the cooling of electronic systems is to increase cooling capacity. Needs for buoyancy driven ventilation appear in a variety of engineering applications, ranging from cooling of electronic components to cooling of nuclear reactor fuel elements. The importance of effective heat sinks is needed to cope up with the advancements of electronics. The most common techniques for enhancing natural convection air-cooling are using parallel plate channels and various fin configurations. Pin fin arrays are frequently used for cooling of high thermal loaded electronic components. Natural convection heat sinks have proven to be instrumental in cooling because the systems are simple and economic, the systems have high reliability and easy maintenance and there is no acoustic noise. In forced convection heat sinks, increase in cooling capacity can never be accomplished without corresponding increases in fluid friction loss, which induces an increase in fan/blower power consumption and acoustic noise level, both of which are disadvantageous in electronic systems. Unfortunately, the selection of the most appropriate heat sink for a particular application can be very difficult given the many design options available.

In this study, we present computational assessment of Plate Fin Heat Sink (PFHS) and Plate Fin Pin Fin Heat Sink (PFPFHS). Based on PFHS, a PFPFHS is constructed which is composed of a PFHS and some columnar pins planted between plate fins. Numerical analysis is carried out to compare thermal performances of these two types of heat sinks under the condition of equal temperature difference between mean sink temperature and ambient temperature. It is found that the base heat transfer coefficient hb increases and heat sink reliability increases in case of PFPFHS as compared with traditional PFHS. The analysis have been carried out for the two types of heat sinks with three different spacing, four temperature differences and four pin diameters.


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