Numerical investigation on thermal behaviors of Heat Sinks and Hybrid Heat Sinks with different PCMs for electronic cooling

Abstract

In this study, a numerical method was used to investigate the melting process of PCM-Heat Sink and PCM-Hybrid Heat sinks for electronic cooling. Firstly, three different PCMs, designated as RT-28HC, RT-31, and RT-54HC, with varying thermophysical properties, were used within aluminum finned heat sink and three-dimensional time-dependent analyses was conducted using the ANSYS Fluent software, at heat fluxes of 3.6, 4.2, and 4.8 kW/m2. To calculate the enhancement ratio in the PCM-Heat Sink, setpoint temperatures of 45°C and 60°C were selected. The results revealed that RT-54HC is the best option among them, since it produced the lowest heat sink base temperature at the end of 120 min simulation period. At last, two hybrid heat sink models, designated as HPCM1 and HPCM2 were designed and their cooling performances were analyzed at heat transfer coefficients of 5, 10, and 15 W/m K. The RT-54HC was used as the PCM for hybrid heat sinks at a heat flux of 4.8 kW/m2. It was observed that HPCM1, with heat conductivity coefficients of 10 and 15 W/m2 K were more effective than PCM-HS models for cooling. In conclusion, this study provides useful guidelines for designing heat sinks and selecting PCM types for electronic cooling.