Optimal Design Methodology of Rectangular Heat Sinks for Electronic Cooling under Natural Convective and Radiative Heat Transfer

In order to comply with the recent demand for downsizing of the electric equipment, the miniaturization and the improvement in heat transfer performance of a heat sink under natural air-cooling and radiation are increasingly required. In this study steady-state external natural convection and radiation heat transfer for vertically-mounted rectangular heat sinks is investigated numerically and analytically. MATLAB is used for formulating analytical data. CATIA V5 software has been used in order to develop a 3-D numerical model and ANSYS FLUENT software for numerical investigation of designed model. After regenerating, and validating the analytical results for fin spacing, thickness and height a systematic numerical study was conducted on effect of the above configurations. Further study is made by providing interruptions to the vertical rectangular fins. Results show that adding interruptions to vertical rectangular fins enhances the thermal performance of fins. In this study optimum height, thickness and spacing of the rectangular fins for maximum fin performance has been found and correlated.