Heat Sink Assisted Thermo-Electric Cooling for Thermal Management in Electronics

ABSTRACT

The rapidly increasing miniaturization of electronic components has resulted in high heat fluxes. This has necessitated the need for thermal management in electronics. Thermoelectric cooling has been investigated as an option for cooling in electronics. Heat sink design is one of the crucial components of the cooling unit. Pin fin heat sinks are a promising option due to their larger surface to volume ratio and heat transfer coefficient, as compared to parallel plate heat sinks. The thermal performance of pin fin heat sinks has been predicted theoretically and measured experimentally. An aluminium pin fin heat sink has been designed and fabricated. Experiments have been performed on a pin fin heat sink assisted thermoelectric system to measure the various performance parameters like heat transfer coefficient, thermal resistance, cooling rate, air side pressure drop and COP of the unit. Poly-Phenylene Sulphide (PPS), a thermally conductive polymer (thermal conductivity = 20 W/m – K) has been compared with aluminium, as an alternative heat sink material. Identical parallel plate heat sinks of aluminium and PPS have been fabricated and tested experimentally under the same operating conditions. The theoretical and experimental results have been compared.

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