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Experimental investigation on paraffin wax-based heat sinks with cross plate fin arrangement for cooling of electronic components

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Abstract

Modern electronic devices need an efficient thermal management system to remove heat effectively under different heat loading conditions. The present paper reports the thermal performance of different heat sink (HS) configurations with various cavities (1, 4, 9, 16, 25, and 36) formed by rectangular cross plate fins arrangement integrated with phase change material (PCM) through experimental investigation. Here, paraffin wax and aluminum are used as PCM and heat sink materials, respectively; tests are conducted for three different heat flux values (\({q}^{{\prime\prime}}\)= 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 kW m−2) and different PCM volume fractions (\(\varphi =\) 0.0, 0.5, 0.8, and 1.0). Results are presented in the form of the transient temperature variation in the HS base, the time required to reach the required set point temperature, enhancement ratio, thermal capacity, and thermal conductance values. The maximum reduction in temperature is found to be 19 and 19.5% for HS with 36 cavities compared to HS with a single cavity at \({q}^{{\prime\prime}}\)=1.5 and 2.0 kW m−2, respectively. In addition, HS with 36 cavities exhibits the maximum enhancement ratio of 6.5 at \({q}^{{\prime\prime}}\)=1.5 kW m−2 for SPT of 65 °C and heat capacity of 1.63 during post-sensible heating for \({q}^{{\prime\prime}}=\) 2.0 kW m−2. The thermal performance is found to increase with the increase in the number of cavities and PCM volume fractions. The study suggests that the solidification time takes approximately twice that of the melting time; forced convection cooling needs to be applied to enhance the cooling rate of PCM.

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Abbreviations

DSC:

Differential scanning calorimeter

HS:

Heat sink

LHTES:

Latent heat thermal energy storage

PCM:

Phase change material

SPT:

Set point temperature (°C)

TCEs:

Thermal conductivity enhancers

TMECs:

Thermal management of electronic components

\(G\) :

Thermal conductance (W°C−1)

\(H\) :

Heat transferred (kJ)

\(k\) :

Thermal conductivity (W m−1 K−1)

\(P\) :

Power (W)

\({q}^{{\prime\prime}}\) :

Heat flux (kW m−2)

\(\Delta T\) :

Temperature difference (K)

\({T}_{\mathrm{max}}\) :

Maximum temperature after charging phase (K)

\({t}_{\mathrm{Cr} \mathrm{with PCM}}\) :

Time to reach critical SPT with PCM (s)

\({t}_{\mathrm{Cr} \mathrm{without fins and} \mathrm{PCM}}\) :

Time to reach critical SPT without fins and PCM (s)

\({V}_{\mathrm{f}}\) :

Volume occupied by fins (mm3)

\({V}_{\mathrm{HS}}\) :

Volume of HS cavity (mm3)

\({V}_{\mathrm{PCM}}\) :

Volume of PCM (mm3)

\(\gamma =\frac{{V}_{\mathrm{f}}}{{V}_{\mathrm{HS}}}\) :

TCE volume fraction

\(\delta =\frac{H}{\Delta T}\) :

Thermal capacity (kJ/K)

\(\varepsilon =\frac{{t}_{\mathrm{Cr} \mathrm{with PCM}}}{{t}_{\mathrm{Cr} \mathrm{without fins and PCM}}}\) :

Enhancement ratio

\(\varphi =\frac{{V}_{\mathrm{PCM}}}{{V}_{\mathrm{HS}}-{V}_{\mathrm{f}}}\) :

Volume fraction of PCM

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Acknowledgements

Authors acknowledge the Department of Science and Technology (DST), India, for financial support to carry out the present work under DST/TMD/MES/2k17/65.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Indore, Indore, 453552, India

    Anuj Kumar, Rohit Kothari, Vivek Saxena, Santosh K. Sahu & Shailesh I. Kundalwal

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Contributions

Anuj Kumar involved in conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, data curation, writing—original draft. Rohit Kothari took part in conceptualization, experimental setup and heat sink design, analysis. Vivek Saxena involved in heat sink design and fabrication, data curation. Santosh K. Sahu took part in resources, funding acquisition, visualization and supervision, writing—review & editing, project administration. Shailesh I. Kundalwal involved in funding acquisition, supervision, writing—review & editing, project administration.

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Kumar, A., Kothari, R., Saxena, V. et al. Experimental investigation on paraffin wax-based heat sinks with cross plate fin arrangement for cooling of electronic components. J Therm Anal Calorim 147, 9487–9504 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-022-11223-9

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