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Investigation of the Thermal Performance of Heatsinks for CPU Air Cooling

Experiment Findings · October 2018

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 UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND, JOHANNESBURG
SCHOOL OF MECHANICAL, INDUSTRIAL AND
AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING

Research Project (MECN4006)

Title: Investigation of CPU Fan Cooling
Name and Student Number: Gruheet Seetal 806915
Supervisor: Prof. T. Kim
Date: 19th October 2018

DECLARATION WITH TASK SUBMITTED FOR ASSESSMENT

I, the undersigned, am registered for the course, Research Project (MECN4006), in the year
2018. I herewith submit the following task, “Investigation of CPU Fan Cooling” in partial
fulfilment of the requirements of the above course.
I hereby declare the following:
o I am aware that plagiarism (the use of someone else’s work without their permission
and/or without acknowledging the original source) is wrong;
o I confirm that the work submitted herewith for assessment in the above course is my own
unaided work except where I have explicitly indicated otherwise;
o This task has not been submitted before, either individually or jointly, for any course
requirement, examination or degree at this or any other tertiary educational institution;
o I have followed the required conventions in referencing the thoughts and ideas of others;
o I understand that the University of the Witwatersrand may take disciplinary action against
me if it can be shown that this task is not my own, unaided work or that I have failed to
acknowledge the sources of the ideas or words in my writing in this task.

Signed on this 19th day of October 2018.

STUDENT NO. NAME AND SIGNATURE
806915 Gruheet Seetal

i
Abstract
This report details an experiment to evaluate the thermal cooling performance of a radial fin
heat sink under air flow generated by an axial fan. Measurements from the experiment were
used to calculate a thermal resistance for each heat sink at various fan RPM’s. The radial fin
heat sink has a thermal resistance ranging from 0.59 C/W to 0.5°C/W and the parallel fin heat
sink has a thermal resistance ranging from 0.63°C/W to 0.52°C/W for fan RPM’s ranging from
1600 to 3400. The performance of published data for various heat sink geometries are compared
and used as a benchmark to evaluate the difference in performances measured in this
experiment. The published data for proposed heat sink geometries ranged from 0.70°C/W to
0.10°C/W in wind tunnel experimental setups. It was concluded that the thermal performance of
the radial heat sink does not justify its use as a standard CPU cooling solution.

Table of Contents
Declaration ..................................................................................................................................... i
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Background ......................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Motivation........................................................................................................................... 3
1.3 Objective ............................................................................................................................. 3
2. Experimental Setup ................................................................................................................... 3
2.1 Apparatus ............................................................................................................................ 3
2.2 Instrumentation ................................................................................................................... 5
2.3 Methodology and Data Processing ..................................................................................... 5
3. Discussion of Results ................................................................................................................ 6
4. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................... 9
5. References ................................................................................................................................. 9

ii
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
The increase of heat generated by CPU’s is due to the placement of more cores within
CPUs to increase the component’s computing power [1-3]. For Intel’s 8th generation of Core i7
processors the components are aimed to be maintained at a temperature of 30°C to 40°C
depending on the model of CPU. The maximum case temperature of 8th generation i7 CPU’s
range from 64.5°C to 71.4°C depending on the model of processor [3]. If the processor
temperature exceeds the maximum case temperature for too long a time, the components are
prone to damage and temporary or permanent failure. The thermal power dissipation
requirement of a CPU is stipulated by its manufacturer as the Thermal Design Power (TDP) to
prescribe the thermal cooling capacity required by the cooling system. TDP’s range from 35W
to 95W for Intel’s latest generation of personal use CPU’s [3]. To control the temperature of the
CPU, cooling systems are installed to transfer thermal energy away from the component. The
most widely used cooling medium for this heat transfer is air. Air is used due to the simplicity
of the cooling system components and the availability of the medium.
The cooling system used for commercial desktop computing systems is a fan and heat
sink assembly. This assembly draws air from the computer case surroundings and drives it
through the computer system and through a heat sink using axially driven fans. Fan and heat
sink cooling assemblies are shown in fig.1. Heat sink cooling assemblies have several problems
which pertain to the flow of air as well as the conduction of heat through the heatsink. The
shape of the fins in the heatsink have a large effect on the cooling ability of the system. There
are two commonly used fin orientations used in heat sinks, being radial fins and parallel fins.

Fig. 1: Different Standard Heat Sink Fin Geometries, (a): Radial Fin [4] (b) Parallel Fin [5]
Airflow through heat sinks is always driven by a CPU fan. The current DC motor
driven fans make use of centrally placed motors which block airflow to the core of the heatsink.
Due to this, air in the centre of the heat recirculates or does not flow which means that there is
very low heat transfer due to convection in that region. Due to the various problems with the
heat sink and fan assembly cooling system, many designs have been proposed to improve its
cooling ability. These designs are summarised in table 1.

1
Table 1: Various Heat Sink Fin Designs and their Design Points

Type Design Point

Round fin [6]
Elliptical fin [6]
Staggered fins [6]
Oblique fin [6]
Straight rectangular [7]
Rectangular cross cut [7]
Radial fin [8]
Optimise heat transfer for impinging air flow
Improve convective heat transfer in one direction with minimum
pressure loss across the heat sink
Improve heat transfer through arrays of fins by making use of
boundary layer formation from preceding fins
Improve air flow through the heat sink by aligning fins with
incoming air flow direction from the CPU fan
Increase the available heat transfer area for forced convection in
one direction
Increase available heat transfer area but reducing pressure drop
compared to parallel fin arrays
Increase the available heat transfer area in the radial flow direction
of air as produced by CPU fans

Some of the fin geometries are given in fig. 2 with all fins lying on a rectangular base.

Fig.2: Top View of Different Fin Geometries Used in Heat Sinks [8]

The various heat sink fin designs offer a range of performances under different
application setups such as the vertical and horizontal configurations. The reason why only the
parallel and radial fin configurations have become widely used is that many geometries are
difficult to manufacture or more expensive to implement with respect to the gain in thermal
performance provided.

2
1.2 Motivation
The central processing unit of a computing system known as a CPU generates a lot of
heat as it functions. Due to the advances in computing power the heat generated by these
components is increased as the components become smaller and operate at higher frequencies
[1-3]. Radial fin heatsinks are used by Intel as a standard thermal solution for their processors
however there are many proposed heat sink fin geometries with better claimed performances.
This research aims to produce thermal resistance data for a radial fin heat sink and compare that
of a parallel fin heat sink geometry. This data will be used to evaluate whether a radial fin heat
sink is a justifiable standard CPU cooling solution.

1.3 Objective
Empirically evaluate the cooling performance of a standard cooling solution radial fin
heat sink and compare its thermal performance with other types of heat sinks.

2. Experimental Setup
2.1 Apparatus
The test rig comprised of a Teflon plate to which the heat sinks were attached with
bolts. A thin film heater was attached to a 39mm diameter steel disk with a thickness of 3mm to
ensure an even heat transfer into the area of the base of the heat sink. The disk is placed at the
centre of the base of the heat sink with thermal paste applied to the contacting surfaces and the
fan is mounted on the top of the heat sink. The test rig is shown in fig. 3 with the fan and radial
sin heat sink mounted. The anticipated direction of air flow induced by the fan is indicated by
the red arrows. The fan sucks air into the heat sinks via anti-clockwise rotation and the air
leaves the heatsink radially.

Akasa axial fan

RCBF heatsink

Teflon plate

Aluminium support bar

Fig. 3: The Experimental Setup

3
 The fan and heat sink are made by Akasa and are part of the AK-CC7108EP01 thermal
solution [11]. The heat sink design is called a Radial Curved Bifurcated Fin Heatsink (RCBF)
design. Power supply to the fan was from an RS PRO Variable DC Power Supply unit (RPE-
1326) and power to the heater was from an RS PRO DC Power Supply (IPS 3610D). The Akasa
fan is shown in fig. 4.

Fig. 4: The Akasa Axial Fan

Two heat sinks were evaluated. The first is the radial fin heatsink from the Akasa
thermal solution which is the standard cooling solution for intel processors. The other heat sink
is a plain parallel fin heat sink manufactured by Intel (A80856-002). Both heat sinks are shown
in fig. 5 and their dimensions are given in table 2.

Figure 5(a): The RCBF Heat Sink Figure 5(b): The Parallel Fin Heat Sink
Table 2: Geometries of the Heat Sinks Used in the Experiment

Radial Fin Heat Sink Parallel Fin Heat Sink

Heat sink height 26.55±0,01mm Heat sink height 37.47±0,01mm
Fin height 26.55±0,01mm Fin height 30.82±0,01mm
Core diameter 38±0,01mm Base height 6.65±0,01mm
Primary fin thickness 0.80±0,01mm Fin thickness 0.90±0,01mm
Primary fin diameter 61.82±0,01mm Fin pitch 2.90±0,01mm
Secondary fin thickness 0.55±0,01mm
Secondary fin diameter 89.81±0,01mm
Heat sink mass 193.35±0,01g Heat sink mass 234.24±0,01g

4
2.2 Instrumentation
The variables measured were the temperature of the top of the metal disk, the ambient
temperature in the room, and the RPM of the fan. The temperature of the disk was measured by
a Film T-type Omega thermocouple which was read by a Fluke 51 II digital thermometer. The
ambient temperature was measured by placing a Bulb T-type Omega thermocouple in the air
away from the experimental setup, walls or furniture and was also ready by another Fluke
thermometer. The RPM of the fan was measured by a Lutron (DT-2268) digital tachometer. The
uncertainty in measurement for each of the variables in the experiment are given in table 3.

Table 3: Uncertainties in Measured Values

Variable Uncertainty
Heater Supply Voltage ±2.5V
Fan Supply Voltage ±0.1V
Fan Supply Current ±0.01A
Fan RPM ±30 RPM
Thermocouple Temperature Reading ±0.1°C

2.3 Methodology and Data Processing

The fan RPM was set by altering the current input to the fan and was confirmed using
the digital tachometer. Before each test run the fan was left to run for 5 minutes to ensure that
the RPM would settle at the correct value. The ambient and disk temperatures were taken before
the heater was turned on and while the fan was running. The heater and disk simulate a CPU
and the power input to the heater was 35W, the same as for an 8th generation Intel Core i3
processor [5]. This power is chosen as the Aksa thermal solution is designed for Intel Core 2
Duo, Core i3 or Core i5 processors [9]. The supply voltage to the heater was set to 2.5V and
coupled with the heaters measured resistance of 15.56Ω produces a thermal power generation of
38.7W. This input is slightly higher than the 35W TDP as not all the input power is conducted
through the disk as thermal energy. The actual power conducted was confirmed to be 35W from
a conduction analysis of the disk by running the heater, turning it off and then allowing the
cooling assembly to run with the fan off. The ambient and disk temperatures are taken every
minute. To determine whether or when the cooling system achieved steady-state operation the
fan was run at 1075RPM for 1 hour. The temperature difference between the disk (Ts) and
ambient air (Ta) variation over this time is shown in fig. 6 as an increase in temperature as time
passed until not exceeding 32°C after 20 minutes. For future runs steady state was then taken as
the region in which the temperature fluctuations were within 1% of a settling temperature with
the test runs having durations of 30 minutes.

5
 33,0
31,0
29,0
Ts-Ta [°C] 27,0
25,0
23,0
21,0
19,0
17,0
15,0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Time [min]
Fig. 6: Temperature Difference vs Time Plot to Determine the Occurrence of Steady State

The measured temperatures and input thermal power from the heater are used to
characterise the thermal performance of both fans by calculating a thermal resistance for the
cooling assembly. The thermal resistance is calculated as shown in equation 1 [10].
∆𝑇
𝑅𝑡ℎ = (1)
𝑄𝑖𝑛
Where ∆𝑇 is the temperature difference between the disk Ts and ambient temperatures Ta, in °C
and Qin is the power input to the heater in W. The thermal resistance can then be plotted against
the fan RPM to allow comparison of the cooling system for various fan designs and air flow
arrangements. The uncertainty in the calculated value of thermal resistance based on the
uncertainties of measurements and is given as a percentage in table 4. Since a range of RPM’s
was tested for 30 min durations, only the average uncertainty in calculated value is reported for
each heat sink. The uncertainty is calculated from the fractional uncertainty given in equation 2
[11].
2 2
∆𝑅𝑡ℎ ∆(𝑇𝑠 − 𝑇𝑎 ) ∆𝑅𝑃𝑀
= √( ) +( ) (2)
𝑅𝑡ℎ (𝑇𝑠 − 𝑇𝑎 ) 𝑅𝑃𝑀
Table 4: Uncertainty in Calculated Values

Value Average Uncertainty

Thermal Resistance of Radial Fin Heat Sink [°C/W] 1.36%
Thermal Resistance of Parallel Fin Heat Sink [°C/W] 1.35%
Fan RPM 0.01%

3. Discussion of Results
Trendlines of the form y = axb were fitted to published data in fig. 7 as well as the
experimental results in fig. 8 as they best represented the trends in data whilst accounting for
variation. The thermal performance of published data from various heat sink fin geometries [12-

6
14] is shown in fig. 7 and is presented to quantitively indicate the range of thermal performance
provided by heat sinks to judge whether the data produced in this experiment is valid. The
thermal resistance data of the radial and the parallel fin heat sinks from this experiment is
presented in fig. 8.

0,7

Aranyosi et. al. [12]

0,6
Tasaka et. al. [14]
Thermal Resistance Rth [°C/W]

Ji et. al. [13]

0,5

0,4

0,3

0,2

0,1

0
0 0,005 0,01 0,015 0,02 0,025 0,03 0,035 0,04
Air Mass Flow Rate [kg/s]
Figure 7: Thermal Resistance vs Air Mass Flow Rate of Referenced Heat Sink Geometries

The trends of all plots in fig. 7 show a decrease in thermal resistance with increasing air
mass flow rate. The designs proposed by Aranyosi et. al [12], Ji et. al. [13] and Tasaka et. al.
[14] offer a large range of thermal performance in the same mass flow rate range. All the
reference data was obtained from experiments evaluating the performance of different heat sink
designs in wind tunnels. Aranyosi et. al. [12] made use of an impinging flow duct delivering air
into the central ‘V’ shape of the heat sink and leaving the heat sink laterally. Ji et. al. [13] made
use of a honeycomb flow correction structure to ensure uniformity if the incoming airflow to the
heat sink. The test section of their wind tunnel had the same dimensions as the heat sink so that
no air bypassed the structure. Tasaka et. al. [14] also made use of a honeycomb inlet flow
corrector in their wind tunnel. The test section in their wind tunnel however had a clearance
flow area of 0.36mm around the heat sink.
The worst performing design, that of Aranyosi et. al. [12] operates with impinging flow
into the central ‘V’ structure of the heatsink. Its thermal performance is approximately 0.6 °C/W
larger than the extrapolation of the best performing design, proposed by Ji et. al. [13] at a mass
flow rate of approximately 0.005 kg/s. The corrugated parallel fin design proposed by Tasaka
et. al. [14] illustrates an optimised balance between spacing between fins and an increased fin
area by geometry which produces the best extrapolated thermal performance of the referenced
7
heat sinks. This is due to the increased available convective heat transfer area without
compromising on air flow through the heatsink.
In fig. 8, the thermal performance of the Akasa thermal solution is compared to the
performance of the un-modified parallel fin geometry. For the fan RPM’s tested, the radial fin
heat sink offered a marginally lower thermal resistance than the parallel plate fin heat sink, with
a difference in thermal resistance of approximately 0.05°C/W which decreased as the fan RPM
increased. Comparing the difference in thermal performance of the heat sinks presented in
figures 6 and 7, the use of the radial fin geometry heat sink is not justified by its improved
thermal performance as compared to the proposed heat sink designs by Tasaka et. al [14] and Ji
et. al. [13]. A parallel fin heat sink was also used as a reference case by Lin et. al. [15] to
evaluate the performance of a new fan and a new heat sink design they were investigating. The
data for Lin et. al [15] indicates the sensitivity of fan and heat sink geometries for the same fan
and fin types, with their cooling system displaying an increasingly better thermal performance
with increasing RPM, than the radial fin heat sink and axial fan of this experiment. The fan used
by Lin et. al. [15] had 9 blades as compared to the 7 bladed fan used in this experiment. Their
parallel fin heat sink had fins which were 0.6mm thinner than the fins of the parallel fin heat
sink in this experiment whilst also having 2.6 times as many fins.

0,800 Jian Hui and Chun-Xin [8]

0,700

0,600
Thermal Resistance Rth [°C/W]

0,500

0,400

0,300

0,200 Lin et.al [15]

0,100
1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000 5500
RPM
Fig. 8: Thermal Resistance for the Radial and Plate Fin Heat Sinks

Referring to fig. 8, in this experiment the radial fin heat sink offers a lower thermal
performance than proposed by Jian-Hui and Chun-Xin [8]. In the experiment performed by

8
Jian-Hui and Chun-Xin [8], they concluded that the radial fin heatsink they tested offered an
average thermal resistance of 0.395 °C/W for heater input power ranging from 80W to 135W at
a constant fan RPM of 5000. Jian-Hui and Chun-Xin [8] used an experimental setup having an
axial fan and radial heat sink similar to the setup of this experiment, however their setup was
contained in a temperature controlling box. The thermal resistances of the radial and parallel fin
heat sinks from this experiment have extrapolated values of 0.462 °C/W and 0.452 °C/W
respectively which are 14.5% and 12.6% higher than that found by Jian-Hui and Chun-Xin [8].
Although Jian-Hui and Chun-Xin [8] also made use of an axial fan, the number of blades, blade
and fan dimensions are different than those of the Akasa axial fan in this experiment. Fan
geometries have a large effect on the air mass flow rates generated by the fans at the same
RPM’s. For this reason, it is better to plot thermal resistance against RPM for the same fan
model, but more accurate to plot thermal resistance against mass flow rate for different fan
models. It is also however very difficult to measure the mass flow rate of air through a heat sink
in fan and heat sink assemblies due to the available space for instrumentation.

4. Conclusions
The performance of the Akasa thermal solution was evaluated and compared to the thermal
performance of a plain parallel fin heatsink.

• The experimental setup differed greatly from wind tunnel setups used by researchers of
the referenced data.
• Reporting thermal resistance against fan RPM is a better indicator for fan cooled
systems, for the same fan model.
• Both heat sinks displayed decreased thermal resistance with increasing fan RPM,
indicating better cooling performance.
• The use of a radial fin heat sink is not justified due to the small increase in thermal
performance for such a complicated geometry.

5. References
1. Desktop 4th Generation Intel Core Processor Family. (2015). 1st ed. [pdf] Intel
Corporation, pp.66. Available at:
https://www.intel.co.za/content/www/za/en/processors/core/4th-gen-core-family-
desktop-vol-1-datasheet.html [Accessed 9 Sep. 2018].
2. Desktop 6th Generation Intel Processor Families for S-Platforms (2017). 1st ed. [pdf]
Intel Corporation, pp.92. Available at:
https://www.intel.co.za/content/www/za/en/processors/core/desktop-6th-gen-core-
family-datasheet-vol-1.html [Accessed 9 Sep. 2018].
3. 8th Generation Intel Processor Family for S-Processor Platforms. (2017). 2nd ed. [pdf]
p.92. Available at:

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cd.com/de/product/Intel-LGA-1366-CPU-Luftkhler-mit-Aluminium-Khllamellen-TDP-
130W-Push-Pin-Clip/TTC-NA01TZ-Series.html [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

5. Dai, K. (2017). What are skived fin Heatsinks?. [image] Available at:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-skived-fin-heatsinks-heat-sink-kaitlin-dai
[Accessed 17 Oct. 2018].

6. D. Soodphakdee, M. Behnia, D.W Copeland, A Comparison of Fin Geometries for

Heatsinks in Laminar Forced Convection: Part I Round, Elliptical, and Plate Fins in
Staggered and In-Line Configurations, Intl. Journal of Microcircuits and Electronic
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12. Aranyosi, A., Bolle, L. and Buyse, H. (1997). Compact air-cooled heat sinks for power
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https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/566794.
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