Abstract

In this study, we conducted a numerical simulation to examine the cooling performance of aluminum finned heat sink attached to a silicon chip, placed in a chamber of a rectangular cross-section. The heat sink is being cooled by convective heat transfer utilizing nine commercially available gaseous coolants namely, air, hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon-dioxide, freon12 vapor, propane, and ammonia. In order to select an appropriate coolant for electronic devices in terms of thermal-hydraulic performance, the maximum temperature on the chip domain and the associated pressure drop in the cooling channel as a function of coolant velocity are analyzed for the aforementioned fluids. Energy equation, Continuity equation, Naiver-stokes equations, Newton’s Law of Cooling, Stefan Boltzmann equation are coupled together to solve the thermal and hydraulic variables in this model. Finite Element Method (FEM) is used to solve these governing equations. It has been found that the minimum temperature is recorded for propane and freon12 vapor which is about ~31.1 °C for a coolant velocity of 0.5m/s but freon12 vapor shows the highest pressure drop ~900 millipascal among all coolants. In the overall velocity regime, hydrogen shows the best cooling performance in terms of both cooling capacity and hydrodynamic characteristics. But considering safety issues helium can be a better alternative. This comprehensive study provides a better understanding of different coolant performance which will aid designers and engineers to develop an effective cooling technique to accommodate the inexorably rising power demand.