Numerical and experimental thermal characterization of a liquid cooled AlSiC power electronics base plate with integral pin fins

In this study, we present the thermal analysis and experimental performance assessment of an aluminum silicon carbide (AlSiC) metal matrix composite (MMC) base plate with integral cooling fins. By attaching a pin-finned base plate to an open-chambered flow-through heat sink, the mechanical interface between the base plate and cooling medium is eliminated. This reduces the overall thermal resistance and improves module reliability as compared with traditional base plate cooling schemes. Computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer techniques were employed to model the thermal and hydrodynamic resistance characteristics through the pin fin structure of a prototype base plate design. A "unit-cell" approach was employed to avoid the computational expense of modeling the entire pin array. Performance was verified experimentally in a closed loop test facility using water as the cooling fluid. It was found that the unit-cell approach produced excellent agreement with experimental pressure drop data for the full array, while heat transfer predictions were adequate.