Heat Transfer Enhancement of Small Scale Heat Sinks Using Vibrating Pin Fin

Abstract

Heat sinks are widely adopted in electronics cooling together with different technologies to enhance the cooling process. For the small electronics application, the small scale pin fins heat sinks are extensively used to dissipate heat in electronics devices. Due to the limit of space in the small devices, it is impossible to increase heat transfer area. In order to improve the heat transfer performance, the applying the forced vibration is one of challenging method. This study applies the vibration frequency between 50 to 1,000 Hz to pin fins heat sinks. The results of numerical simulation clearly show satisfied heat transfer augmentation. However, the Pressure drop significantly increases with frequency. This phenomenon affects the heat transfer enhancement performance that it increases with frequency until certain value then it drops rapidly. The results of this study can help designing heat sinks for electronics cooling by employing the concept of vibration.

Effect of fin spacing on the vibration-assisted thermal performance of heat sink

“…Other than those active cooling methods, the use of vibration to disrupt the thermal boundary layer and achieve enhanced heat transfer is a trending method among researchers. Gunaratna and Li [11] numerically studied the thermal performances of 2D oscillating square pin fin, and the intensification of heat transfer reached a maximum of 31.8%. Soria and Norton [12] experimentally investigated vibration-assisted heat transfer of a heated plate, and local heat transfer argumentation is increased by up to 290% compared to the non-vibrating plate.…”

Comparison of Forced Convective Heat-Transfer Enhancement of Conventional and Thin Plate-Fin Heat Sinks under Sinusoidal Vibration

“…Moreover, past studies investigated the potential of mechanical vibration for enhancing the thermal efficiency of fins or heat sinks. For instance, the vibration-assisted heat transfer of 2D fins has been numerically investigated by Gunaratna and Li [37], Fu and Wang [38] and Rahman et al [30]. These studies show that vibration induces the secondary flows within the flow regime, which disrupts the thermal boundary layer, resulting in enhanced heat transfer.…”