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Computational fluid dynamics for thermal performance of a water-cooled minichannel heat sink with different chip arrangements

Gongnan Xie (Engineering Simulation and Aerospace Computing (ESAC), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China)
Shian Li (Engineering Simulation and Aerospace Computing (ESAC), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China)
Bengt Sunden (Division of Heat Transfer, Department of Energy Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden)
Weihong Zhang (Engineering Simulation and Aerospace Computing (ESAC), Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China)

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow

ISSN: 0961-5539

Article publication date: 29 April 2014

514

Abstract

Purpose

With the development of electronic devices, including the desires of integration, miniaturization, high performance and the output power, cooling requirement of chips have been increased gradually. Water-cooled minichannel is an effective cooling technology for cooling of heat sinks. The minichannel flow geometry offers large surface area for heat transfer and a high convective heat transfer coefficient with only a moderate pressure loss. The purpose of this paper is to analyze a minichannel heat sink having the bottom size of 35 mm×35 mm numerically. Two kinds of chip arrangement are investigated: diagonal arrangement and parallel arrangement.

Design/methodology/approach

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique is used to investigate the flow and thermal fields in forced convection in a three-dimensional minichannels heat sink with different chip arrangements. The standard k-e turbulence model is applied for the turbulence simulations on the minichannel heat sink.

Findings

The results show that the bottom surface of the heat sink with various chip arrangements will have different temperature distribution and thermal resistance. A suitable chip arrangement will achieve a good cooling performance for electronic devices.

Research limitations/implications

The fluid is incompressible and the thermophysical properties are constant.

Practical implications

New and additional data will be helpful as guidelines in the design of heat sinks to achieve a good thermal performance and a long lifetime in operation.

Originality/value

In real engineering situations, chips are always placed in various manners according to design conditions and constraints. In this case the assumption of uniform heat flux is acceptable for the surfaces of the chips rather than for the entire bottom surface of the heat sink.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by NPU Foundation for Fundamental Research (NPU-FFR-JC20130115) and NPU Foundation for Ao-xiang Star Program, and by Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (20116102120021).

Citation

Xie, G., Li, S., Sunden, B. and Zhang, W. (2014), "Computational fluid dynamics for thermal performance of a water-cooled minichannel heat sink with different chip arrangements", International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 797-810. https://doi.org/10.1108/HFF-01-2013-0013

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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