Effects of metal foam on exergy and entropy of nanofluids in a heat sink applied for thermal management of electronic components

Abstract

To solve the high heat dissipation of the heat sink, a set of experimental device for the flow and heat transfer of the nanofluids through a heat sink filled with metal foam was established in this paper. The impacts of metal foam with diverse pore densities (PPI = 20, 30, 40), nanoparticle mass fractions (from β = 0.0 wt% to β = 0.5 wt%) and Reynolds numbers (Re = 414-1119) on the flow and heat transfer characteristics were investigated. In addition, the thermal and hydraulic properties were evaluated by the exergy efficiency and entropy generation. The conclusions displayed that the metal foam with a pore density (PPI = 40) is instrumental in strengthening the heat transfer under a certain porosity, and the heat sink under the working condition (β = 0.3 wt% and PPI = 40) possesses the best capacity of thermal performance. Nanofluids and metal foam (PPI = 40) can improve Nusselt number by 6.13% and 3.2% at most compared with water and metal foam (PPI = 20 and PPI = 30), respectively. Nanofluids with β = 0.3 wt% exhibit the highest exergy efficiency, and the metal foam with PPI = 40 shows the smallest entropy generation.

Analysis of the Heat Transfer in Electronic Radiator Filled with Metal Foam

“…Porous metal foam structures with high specific surface area, high permeability properties and high mechanical strength are being explored as an alternative material to conventional heat exchangers. In the field of heat transfer [13][14][15][16], metal foam holds great promise for applications in multifunctional heat exchangers [17][18][19], cooling systems [20][21][22][23], highpower batteries, compact electronic heat sinks [23][24][25][26][27][28] and so on. Porous metal foam can significantly reduce the size and mass of equipment when used in heat transfer equipment due to their light mass and low density.…”

Experimental investigation and performance evaluation of thermal energy management arrangements for robots

“…They evaluated their design with technically lumped‐capacitance parameter thermal network configuration with some finite element analysis and computational fluid mechanics models with predefined conditions, where they proved their cooling system was effective. Qi et al 27 investigated the flow and heat transfer of the nanofluids through a heat sink filled with metal foam for the thermal management of electronic components. They experimentally investigated the impacts of metal foam in different pore densities (PPI) at 20, 30, and 40, as well as various nanoparticle mass fractions ( β ) between 0 and 0.5 wt%.…”

“…The cold plates that are liquid-cooled in a humanresembling robot with multiple heat generating spots are investigated as presented elsewhere. 27 Their experiments are conducted for comparison of a number of designed and configured cold mats that are connected to different heat sources. The electric heaters are then involved to model/simulate heat generation inside the robot.…”

Lattice Boltzmann simulation on thermal management of electronic components with nonuniform temperature based on nanofluids

“…Nanofluids show excellent thermal conductivity 1,2 and they are used in many fields. Such as, CPU cooling, 3,4 heat exchangers, 5‐7 heat pipe, 8 microchannel, 9,10 solar evaporation, 11 and photothermal conversion 12‐14 . Esfe et al 15 reviewed the application of nanofluids in machining processes.…”