Least Material Optimization of Natural-Convective Heat Sinks

Abstract

In this study, the least material optimization of natural convective heat sinks subject to a localized heat source is performed. An analytic method for predicting the thermal resistances of fin array and heat sink base is presented. The presented analytic method is shown to predict the experimental results well within 5%. Based on the analytic results, a method for minimizing the height of natural convective heat sinks is proposed The minimum required heat sink height is shown to increase as the targeted thermal resistance decreases. As the heat source localization intensity increases, both the minimum fin height and substrate thickness are shown to increase. The minimum heat sink height increases as the ambient temperature increases when the radiation heat transfer is eliminated, while it is nearly independent from the ambient temperature when the radiation heat transfer is augmented.