NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF TURBULENT FLOW IN A HEAT EXCHANGER EQUIPPED WITH FINS OF DIFFERENT MATERIALS AND GEOMETRIES

Abstract

The miniaturization of electronic devices causes heat generation in the system. In this scenario, highly effective heat sinks are needed for the electronic devices. The present study focuses on enhancing heat transfer in heat sinks by using pin fins with different geometries (circular, elliptical, triangular, and square), various materials for pin fins (copper, aluminum, magnesium, tungsten, zinc, and steel), and Al₂O₃-EG nanofluid. The analysis is carried out by a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program called Ansys Fluent 14, which was used to numerically solve the governing equations and boundary conditions. The 3D model is subsequently discretized using the ICEM CFD meshing tool. From the analysis, it has been observed that 331.75 W of heat is lost by using copper material in a heat sink, and magnesium recorded 363.7 W of heat loss, whereas aluminum recorded 319.5 W. Moreover, copper is a great material for transferring heat. This means that heat moves quickly through copper and magnesium as they have good thermal conductivity. Elliptical materials conserve materials more than others when the space is limited to one direction. Elliptical shapes record 461.67 W heat loss.