Natural and forced convection heat transfer coefficients of various finned heat sinks for miniature electronic systems

Abstract

Downward lighting light-emitting diodes require cooling with cylindrical fin heat sinks to be mounted on top and cooled under natural convection air cooling mode. Performance simulation would involve specification of the heat transfer coefficient. Numerous methods are available to simulate the performance of conventional plate fin heat sinks including computational fluid dynamics packages. It would be feasible to perform simulation based on conventional flat plate fin heat sinks. A cylindrical fin heat sinks could be simply treated as a plate fin heat sink, if we imagine it cut open and laid out horizontally. A theoretical model is proposed in this paper. An experimental investigation is conducted here to validate its accuracy. Convective heat transfer coefficients were experimentally determined for a horizontally and vertically inclined bare plate operating under natural and forced air cooling modes. In addition, a vertical plate fin heat sink and a vertical cylindrical fin heat sink under natural convection were investigated. Power inputs were kept from 5 to 40 W in order to keep operating temperatures below 100 ℃. Comparison of the experimental heat transfer coefficients and those obtained from well-known existing Nusselt number correlations show that agreement was poor for the bare plate but satisfactory for the plate and cylindrical fin heat sinks. Although they are within the generally accepted range, it would be advisable for actual measurements to be carried out in order to provide more accurate sizing for thermal measurements.