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Experimental study of heat sink performance using copper foams fabricated by electroforming

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Abstract

In this study, performance of heat sinks using the copper foams as heat-sinking material is investigated experimentally. The copper foam is fabricated by electroforming technique using polymer foam with pre-coated silver film as the precursors. The manufactured copper foams have the porosity, pore density (pore per inch, PPI), permeability and inertial coefficient in the ranges of 0.5–0.8, 10–40, 0.6–2 × 10−9 m2 and 1.5–3, respectively. Besides the copper-foam heat sink, performances of single-channel, plate-fin and pin-fin heat sinks are also investigated and compared with copper-foam heat sinks. The experimentally measured results show that the thermal resistances of copper-foam heat sinks are better than the single-channel, plate-fin and pin-fin heat sinks because of special flow features inside the porous media, enlarged heat-transfer area and enhanced heat transfer coefficient. Detail comparisons between the results of copper-foam heat sinks indicate that the thermal resistance of copper-foam heat sink decreases with the decrease in porosity and increase in pore density. The pressure drop crossing the copper-foam heat sink increases with the increase in pore density and decrease in porosity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, 402, Taiwan

    Reiyu Chein & Chijay Lu

  2. Graduate Institute of Precision Engineering, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, 402, Taiwan

    Hsiharng Yang

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Wufeng Institute of Technology, Chia-yi, 621, Taiwan

    Tsung-Hsun Tsai

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  1. Reiyu Chein
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  2. Hsiharng Yang
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  3. Tsung-Hsun Tsai
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  4. Chijay Lu
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Correspondence to Reiyu Chein.

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Chein, R., Yang, H., Tsai, TH. et al. Experimental study of heat sink performance using copper foams fabricated by electroforming. Microsyst Technol 16, 1157–1164 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-009-0950-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-009-0950-y

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