Investigation of Phase Change Material Integrated With High Thermal Conductive Carbon Foam Inside Heat Sinks for Thermal Management of Electronic Components

In recent years phase change materials (PCMs) have emerged as a promising material for various thermal management applications. However, the lower thermal conductivity of PCM is a major hindrance in its widespread use. In the present study, an experimental investigation is carried out using high thermal conductive carbon foam (CF) embedded with PCM inside heat sink for thermal management of electronic components. Various configurations of heat sinks such as unfinned heat sink without PCM, unfinned heat sink integrated with PCM, unfinned heat sink integrated with CF-PCM composite, two finned heat sink integrated with PCM, and two finned heat sink integrated with CF-PCM composite are investigated. The vacuum impregnation technique is employed to infiltrate the PCM inside the CF. Heat flux is varied in the range of 1.5 to 2.5 kW/m2. Temperature variation of the heat sink base is used to compare the performance of various heat sinks. Unfinned heat sink without and with PCM is used for baseline comparison. Enhancement ratios are presented for various set point temperatures (SPT) such as 65 and 75°C. The highest enhancement ratio of 4.98 is obtained for two fin CF-PCM composite heat sink.