Improvement of an ionic wind blower’s flow characteristic by auxiliary electrodes for thermal management of light-emitting diodes

Electronic device advancements in power, size reduction, and integration have resulted in increased heat flux and operating temperatures, negatively impacting the reliability of electronics. Ionic wind cooling is a new, environmentally friendly, and energy-efficient thermal management approach that effectively cools high heat flux local heat sources. However, enhancing ionic wind strength continuously can be challenging. In this study, an ionic wind blower consisting of an emitting electrode, a collecting electrode, and auxiliary electrodes is constructed. The experimental verification confirms the supplemental acceleration capacity of the auxiliary electrodes. When determining the optimal operating voltage applied to the auxiliary electrodes, the power consumption of the system and the intensity of the output ionic wind are taken into consideration. The blower’s operational and structural factors, such as the emitter structure, discharge gap, and distance between the auxiliary electrodes and collectors, are optimized according to how they affect the device’s functional qualities. The improved blower’s heat dissipation ability is evaluated by cooling an LED chip. The results demonstrate that the system performs optimally with an emitter having seven needles, a discharge gap of 5 mm, and 9 mm between the auxiliary electrodes and the collector. The wind speed reaches 2.47 m/s, while the power consumption is only 1.6 W. Compared to the absence of auxiliary electrodes (47.7 W/(m²∙K)), the system’s mean convective heat transfer coefficient can reach 61.12 W/(m²∙K), resulting in a temperature reduction of the LED chip by up to 41.6 °C. With increasing voltage, the heat transfer enhancement ratio improves, enabling a blower with auxiliary electrodes to provide significant cooling while consuming less power.