Experimental and Thermal Network Study on the Performance of a Pins Studded Phase Change Material in Electronic Device Cooling

Abstract

This paper describes the results of experimental and analytical work on a phase-changematerial(PCM)-based transient cooling module. The module is made of low-cost materials, yet it is designed to achieve a reasonably high level of heat transfer performance. Paraffin is used as PCM, and it fills the space studded with metallic pin fins. We measured transient temperature rises at several spots of the module. Also, the effects of the dimensional parameters of the pin fins on the heat dissipation performance were investigated. The measured temperatures explicitly reflect the thermal absorption effect of PCM. Analytical work is conducted using a thermal network model where equivalent thermal capacitance are attached to the nodes of the network. The model is validated by the experimental observations, and the simulation code is expected to serve as an efficient analytical tool in the design of PCM-based cooling modules.

Thermal network calculation model for phase change material with SPICE circuit simulator

“…The purpose of developing a SPICE model including PCM in this study is to optimize the cooling of electrical equipment, such as reducing the electric power consumption of cooling and controlling the package temperature under the system limitation. A paraffin wax, which is generally studied for cooling electronic devices (Hatakeyama et al, 2011, Stupar et al, 2012and Alawadhi et al, 2003, was used for PCM. However, for practical use, an optimization design is required for each system.…”

“…And it is commonly used to circuit simulation. Hatakeyama et al studied PCM model using thermal network method (Hatakeyama et al, 2011). The non-linearity of PCM was calculated with the Runge-Kutta method.…”

Temperature-leveling performance comparison of solid–solid phase change materials for thermal management of electronic chips in thin devices

“…PCMs can be broadly categorized into solid-liquid and solid-solid variants. Thermal management using solid-liquid PCMs, such as paraffin (Kandasamy et al, 2007;Fok et al, 2010;Hatakeyama et al, 2011;Baby and Balaji, 2012;Wang et al, 2016;Ali and Arshad, 2017;Ashraf et al, 2017;Ganatra et al, 2018;Zhu et al, 2018;Avci and Yazici, 2018;Cheng et al, 2020), require a container to prevent liquid leakage. In addition, the thermal conductivity (κ) of paraffin is extremely low (0.1-0.4 W/mK).…”

“…The optimal shape and thickness of a PCM change depending on the shape and heat flux of the electronic device on which the PCM is mounted. The temperature-leveling performance of a heat sink using solid-liquid PCM has been evaluated by thermal simulation (Krishnan and Garimella, 2004;Hatakeyama et al, 2011;Deckard et al, 2023). However, even in this case, the effect of the shape and heat flux on temperature leveling performance has not been clarified.…”

Effect of the inclination angle on the transient performance of a phase change material-based heat sink under pulsed heat loads

“…Considering the low thermal conductivity associated with common PCM candidates, internal fins have been routinely introduced into PCM-based TES systems in an effort to improve their transient performance through enhancement of heat conduction (Fan and Khodadadi, 2011). The effects of internal fins on the performance of PCM-based heat sinks have thus been extensively studied in the literature with applications to electronics cooling (Akhilesh et al, 2005;Shatikian et al, 2005;Nayak et al, 2006;Kandasamy et al, 2008;Saha et al, 2008;Saha and Dutta, 2010;Hatakeyama et al, 2011;Hosseinizadeh et al, 2011;Baby and Balaji, 2012;Jaworski, 2012;Fan et al, 2013a). Natural convection, however, generally occurs in the molten PCM during operation (energy charging) of the PCM-based heat sinks (El Omari et al, 2011;Saha and Dutta, 2011).…”