Heat Transfer Analysis on Various Thermal Dissipation Device

Abstract

ABSTRACT

RENDE, CRAIG MICHAEL. Experimental Investigation on a 392 Series, High Performance Heat Sink (Under the direction of Professor Richard D. Gould)

The primary focus of this research was to experimentally obtain the performance of a Wakefield 392 series heat sink by conducting free and forced convection tests. By measuring the steady-state maximum temperature for various geometric orientations, Nusselt number correlations were found experimentally. These correlations can now be used to predict the performance of the heat sink. It was found that the experimental Nusselt number correlations can predict the performance of the heat sink within 10%. Furthermore, steady-state maximum temperature results showed that for slow fan speeds (2m/s-3m/s), the heat sink temperature achieved a value no higher than 80°C, while dissipating 150 watts. Furthermore, it was found that for a dual heat sink, forced convection test, where one heat sink was downstream from the other, any gap spacing between the devices had minimal effect on the overall thermal performance. Finally, ANSYS® and SolidWorks® were used to geometrically optimize a four-chip power source on a copper heat spreader. Results showed the spreader should carry a thickness of 5-10mm, while the surface area of the power chips should be as large as possible. Furthermore, the spacing between the chips was found to be unimportant. By finding thermal optimization of a heat spreader, and combining it to a system with a heat sink that has also been thermally optimized, a complete system can be designed with optimal performance.