International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 138 (2019) 293–303

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

Fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of heat sinks with laterally
perforated plate fins
Sakkarin Chingulpitak a,b, Ho Seon Ahn c, Lazarus Godson Asirvatham d, Somchai Wongwises b,e,⇑
a
The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangmod, Bangkok 10140, Thailand
b
Fluid Mechanics, Thermal Engineering and Multiphase Flow Research Lab. (FUTURE), Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkut’s University
of Technology Thonburi, Bangmod, Bangkok 10140, Thailand
c
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Incheon National University, Incheon, Republic of Korea
d
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
e
The Academy of Science, The Royal Society of Thailand, Sanam Suea Pa, Dusit, Bangkok 10300, Thailand

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study presents the thermal performance of laterally perforated plate-fin heat sinks (LAP-PFHSs) with
Received 23 September 2018 different numbers (Np) and diameters (Dp) of circular perforations. Based on the same plate fin dimension,
Received in revised form 23 March 2019 the available diameter of circular perforations is limited by their number. The largest diameters of per-
Accepted 5 April 2019
foration for Np = 14, 27 and 75 are 10 mm, 7 mm and 4 mm, respectively. The computational results of
solid fin heat sinks (SFHSs) and LAP-PFHSs are validated with the measured data and experimental data
from the available literature. The comparison results of LAP-PFHSs give the mean absolute error of about
Keywords:
3.6% and 5.3% for the pressure drop and thermal resistance, respectively. According to the numerical
Heat sink
Parallel
results, the LAP-PFHS with Dp = 3 mm and Np = 75 exhibits the highest heat transfer rate, about 11.6%
Perforation higher than that of the SFHS. Finally, the thermal performance factor, which is a consideration of the
Non-bypass flow Nusselt number and friction factor, is proposed to find the suitable design parameters. Under the same
Plate fin conditions, the optimized LAP-PFHS demonstrates 10.6% greater thermal performance and 28% lower vol-
ume of heat sink material than SFHS.
Ó 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction
The recent trend in the development of electronic devices is
moving to more compact or higher performance devices. Therefore,
an electronic cooling system, comprising moving working fluid and
a heat exchanger, is one of the most important things to ensure the
extended lifetime of an electronic device. The heat sink is a simple
heat exchanger that can be separated into two types according to
fin shape: plate fin and pin fin. Over the past few decades, some
researchers have presented studies on the thermal performance
of conventional plate-fin heat sinks to find the optimum plate-fin
thickness [1–3]. Researchers have studied the integration of the
volume of the heat sink as a constraint parameter [4–8].
Moreover, some researchers have presented the heat transfer
improvement of plate-fin heat sinks by modification of fin geome-
try. In 2015, Chingulpitak and Wonwises [9] summarized the
⇑ Corresponding author at: Fluid Mechanics, Thermal Engineering and
Multiphase Flow Research Lab. (FUTURE), Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi,
Bangmod, Bangkok 10140, Thailand.
E-mail address: somchai.won@kmutt.ac.th (S. Wongwises).
studies on the effects of flow behavior and direction on the thermal
performance of conventional heat sinks. They collected literature
that studied vortex generators added to the fins, vortex generators
installed at the front of heat sinks and bypass flow. Kim and Kim
[10] experimentally studied the thermal performance of square
pin-fin, plate-fin and cross-cut heat sinks. It was conducted under
the condition of parallel flow through heat sinks. The results
demonstrated that the thermal performance of single cross-cut fins
was better than that of multiple cross-cut fin. Finally, the authors
proposed the friction factor and Nusselt number correlations for
a single cross-cut heat sink. Chingulpitak et al. [11] experimentally
and numerically investigated the optimal number and length of
cross-cuts. The results demonstrated that the optimal design
parameters were Nc = 6 and Lc = 1.5 mm. The cross-cut heat sink
exhibited lower thermal resistance than the plate-fin heat sink
by about 16.2%. Kim [12] presented a numerical model to find
the optimal design parameters of a branched plate-fin heat sink.
The numerical model was developed using the volume averaging
theory (VAT). At the same base width, base length and fin height,
the optimized branched-fin heat sink exhibited lower thermal
resistance than that of the optimized rectangular-fin heat sink by

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2019.04.027
0017-9310/Ó 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
294 S. Chingulpitak et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 138 (2019) 293–303
Nomenclature
cp specific heat (kJ/kg
°C)
x, y, z
Dh hydraulic diameter (m), Dh ¼ 2Hf W ch = Hf þ W ch
Dp perforation diameter (m)
H height (m)
k thermal conductivity (W/m
K)
L length (m)
m_ mass flow rate (kg/s)
Np total numbers of perforation
NR numbers of perforation row
P pressure (Pa)
DP pressure drop (Pa)
Q heat transfer rate (W)
Re Reynolds number
Rth thermal resistance (K/W)
t time (s)
tf fin thickness (m)
T temperature (°C)
V velocity (m/s)
U velocity vector
u, v, w velocity components (m/s)
W width (m)
about 30%. Ahmed [13] numerically studied the effect of inserting
ribs into the flow passage of a plate-fin heat sink on the thermal
performance. The ribbed plate-fin heat sink (RPFHS) was investi-
gated according to several parameters: the number, height and
position of ribs. The comparison results indicated that the RPFHS
provided a Nusselt number ratio 1.55 times greater than the
plate-fin heat sink under the same conditions. Subasi et al. [14]
showed numerical and experimental studies of aluminum heat
sinks with hexagonal honeycomb fins. They presented numerical
methods to find the optimal design parameters of the honeycomb
fins. The variable parameters were fin thickness, fin height, attack
angle, and longitudinal pitch. The developed model was presented
to determine optimum design parameters by considering at maxi-
mum the Nusselt number and at minimum the friction factor.
Wang et al. [15] experimentally studied the effect of vortex gener-
ators on the air-side performance of a plate-fin heat sink. The
results showed that the optimal vortex generator for heat sink
was triangular attack fin. Moreover, the vortex generators were
also applied in the air-side performance improvement of the fin-
and-tube heat exchanger which was reviewed by Chimres and
Wongwises [16]. In 2018, Chimres et al. [17,18] proposed numeri-
cal investigations on the thermal performance of fin and tube heat
exchangers with vortex generators. The comparison results
between semi-dimple and elliptical winglet vortex generators
and plain fins were presented. The results showed that the heat
transfer coefficient of the vortex generator with semi-dimple was
similar to that of the vortex generator with elliptical winglet. How-
ever, the elliptical winglet vortex generator provided the pressure
drop higher than the semi-dimple vortex generator. They found
that the semi-dimple vortex generator had a higher goodness fac-
tor than the plain fin by 15–20%.
Regarding other fin designs, some researchers studied the ther-
mal performance of plate-fin heat sinks with perforation along the
fin’s length [19–21] or lateral perforation [22–29]. Shaeri and
Yaghoubi [19,20] presented the numerical study of plate-fin heat
sinks with rectangular perforations along the fin’s length. The ther-
mal performance of heat sinks was investigated under the assump-
tions of laminar and turbulence fluid flows and bypass flow. The
comparison results indicated that the Nusselt number of the con-
ventional plate-fin heat sink was higher than that of the perforated
Cartesian coordinates
Greek letters
D differential
l viscosity (kg/m
s)
q density (kg/m3)
k thermal conductivity (W/m2
°C)
/ porosity
Subscripts
a air
avg average value
b base of heat sink
ch channel
conv convection
f fin
in inlet
out outlet
p perforation
s solid fin
plate-fin heat sink. Al-Sallami et al. [21] proposed the heat transfer
and pressure drop of plate-fin heat sinks with a longitudinal notch,
rectangular perforation and multiple circular perforations. They
concluded that the notch and slot perforations resulted in better
heat transfer and pressure drop than the circular perforations.
After that, Shaeri et al. [22] and Shaeri and Bonner [23,24] pre-
sented experimental and numerical studies of laterally perforated
plate-fin heat sinks (LAP-PFHSs). The heat transfer and pressure
drop of heat sinks were presented with various numbers and
dimensions of rectangular perforation.
Shaeri and Bonner [23] experimentally investigated the thermal
performance of laterally perforated-finned heat sinks (LA-PFHSs).
The air flow was assumed to be laminar flow and non-bypass flow.
The rectangular perforation on the plate-fin heat sink was imple-
mented with three different perforation sizes, which were based
on five porosities. They proposed mass-based thermal resistance
as a performance indicator. It was calculated by multiplying the
thermal resistance and mass of the heat sink. The results showed
that LA-PFHSs with the maximum porosity provided 45% lower
mass-based thermal resistance than conventional plate-fin heat
sinks. Ismail et al. [25] performed a numerical study on the heat
transfer of plate fin with square, circular, triangular and hexagonal
perforations. The thermal performance of heat sinks was investi-
gated using a turbulent flow regime and bypass flow. They con-
cluded that the plate-fin heat sink with hexagonal perforations
exhibited the highest fin effectiveness compared with heat sinks
with other perforation shapes. Dhanawade and Dhanawade [26]
and Dhanawade et al. [27,28] reported an experimental study on
the heat transfer of the plate-fin heat sinks with lateral square
and circular perforations. The experimental study was conducted
under the conditions of turbulent flow and bypass flow. At the
same perforation size, the results demonstrated that the fin effec-
tiveness of the square perforated fin was higher than that of the
circular perforated fin.
Ibrahim et al. [29] carried out an experiment and simulation to
study the effect of LAP-PFHSs on the heat transfer characteristic.
The air flow characteristic on the fin tip was assumed to be bypass
flow. The laterally perforated plate fin was investigated with circu-
lar, rectangular and triangular shapes. The highest temperature dif-
ference between the heat sink base and fin tip with circular,
 S. Chingulpitak et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 138 (2019) 293–303 295

rectangular and triangular perforations was 51.29%, 45.57% and The thermal resistance (Rth) of the air flowing through the SFHS
42.28%, respectively. can be determined by
As mentioned above, the trend in thermal performance
improvement of the plate-fin heat sink is focused on the develop- ðT b;av g  T a;av g Þ
Rth ¼ ð2Þ
ment of newly designed fins. However, there are only a few articles Qa
on the thermal performance of plate-fin heat sinks with circular
perforations, which is especially based on force convection, turbu- where Tb,avg represents the average temperature at the heat sink
lent flow and non-bypass flow. For this reason, this article aims to base and Ta,avg represents the average air temperature. The Reynolds
study the thermal performance of LAP-PFHSs under a fixed area for number (Re) can be calculated by
perforation. The position of perforations is distributed equally over
the fin surface. Through numerical investigation, the air flow qV ch Dh
Re ¼ ð3Þ
through solid fin heat sinks (SFHSs) and LAP-PFHSs are considered l
based on parallel flow direction and non-bypass flow. The ratio of
the Nusselt number of perforated plate fins and solid fins to the where V means the velocity of the air in a channel and Dh means the
friction factor of perforated plate fins and solid fins hydraulic diameter of the channel. The hydraulic diameter of the
ðNu=Nus Þ=ðf =f s Þ is used to indicate the optimal LAP-PFHS with cir- channel can be calculated as follows:
cular perforation.
4Ach
Dh ¼ ð4Þ
Pch
2. Experimental apparatus and procedure
where Ach represents the cross-sectional area of the flow channel
The experimental apparatus is set up to study the heat transfer and P represents the wetted perimeter of the channel.
and flow characteristics of SFHSs. A schematic diagram of the
experimental apparatus is presented in Fig. 1. It consists of three
main sections, which are a wind tunnel, test section, and experi-
mental measurement. The air flow inside the wind tunnel is driven
Wch
by an axial fan controlled by an inverter. After that, the air flows tf
through the straightener and the test section. The hot wire
anemometer is used to measure the air velocity which is varied
between 1 and 4 m/s. The test section is made from aluminum
with a dimension of base width 27 mm, base length 75 mm, fin
thickness 1 mm, fin height 25 mm and channel width 3 mm. A
100-watt plate heater with a variable alternating current (AC)
transformer and 20 mm bakelite plate thickness are connected at
the heat sink bottom. At the heat sink base, the temperature is con-
trolled at 40 °C. The digital manometer is used to measure the
pressure drop across the SFHS. An accuracy of the digital manome- Hf
ter is ±0.5% of the full scale. The type T thermocouple, which has an
accuracy of ±0.2 °C, is used to measure the temperatures. More
details of this experimental setup are available from Chingulpitak
Hb
et al. [10]. The heat transfer rate from the SFHS to the air can be
calculated as follows:

_ a cp;a ðT a;av g;out  T a;av g;in Þ

Qa ¼ m ð1Þ

where m _ a means the mass flow rate of air, cp,a means the specific
heat of air and Ta,avg,in and Ta,avg,out mean the average air inlet and
Fig. 2. The geometrical design parameters of solid fin heat sink.
outlet temperatures, respectively.

1030
800
288 230
60 200 200
Insulator Acrylic plate
40 40 100 Fan
T
Straightener
A T T
45
45
35
25

35

98

A
27 Test section
Wind tunnel duct +
ΔP -
Section A-A Variac (Heat flux controller)
Unit: mm

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the experimental apparatus.

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The air flow behavior through the plate-fin heat sink at low
frontal velocity is considered turbulent flow. In the past decade,
Dp
most research studies were on the flow characteristic of air flowing
Hf Sy NR through plate-fin heat sinks using the k–e and k–x turbulence
models. The standard k–x model is suitable for predicting the flow
Sx
at the near-wall region. The k–e model is used to determine far-
field free-stream independence. After that, Menter [32] proposed
tb Lb = Lf the shear stress transport (SST) k-x turbulent model, which was
developed by combining the standard k–x model and the k–e
Fig. 3. The schematic view of laterally perforated plate-fin heat sink with circular
model. Therefore, it can be widely used for predicting the flow
perforations.
characteristic of aerodynamic applications. In the present model,
the SST k-x turbulent model is used to predict the air flow charac-
3. Theory teristic along the flow passage, which is in agreement with the
numerical studies of Zhou et al. [33] and Kanargi et al. [34].
3.1. Mathematical model and numerical method
3.2. Computational domain and simulation settings
The heat transfer of the plate-fin heat sinks and three-
dimensional turbulent flow of the air are presented. The steady, To meet the aims of this study, the comparison criteria of plate-
incompressible and three-dimensional flows are considered to be fin heat sinks is considered under the same fin dimensions. Thus,
the assumptions of air flowing through the plate-fin heat sink. the area for circular perforation is 25  75 mm according to the
The mathematical model does not include the buoyancy effect or dimensions of a solid fin. The geometrical parameters of the SFHS
radiation heat transfer. For the steady turbulent flow, the govern- and LAP-PFHS are shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, respectively. To save
ing equations of continuity, momentum and energy [30,31] are computer resources, the SFHS and LAP-PFHS are considered a por-
as follows: tion of the body. The computational domains of the heat sink and
Continuity equation: air are presented in Fig. 4. The height, length and width of the heat
@u @ v @w sink base are 0.5 mm, 75 mm and 4 mm, respectively. The other
þ þ ¼0 ð5Þ design parameters of the SFHS and LAP-PFHS are shown in Table 1.
@x @y @z
The computational domain of air is considered to be three-
Momentum equation: dimensional fluid flow and steady-state. The top and bottom walls
Du @P are assumed to feature adiabatic and no-slip conditions. The side
x  momentum q ¼ þ div ðl grand uÞ ð6aÞ walls are considered symmetrical. The air flow is considered as
@t @x
non-bypass flow. It is given to be a constant temperature of
Dv @P 30 °C, ambient pressure and uniform flow at the inlet boundary
y  momentum q ¼ þ div ðl grand v Þ ð6bÞ
@t @y condition. At the outlet boundary of the air domain, the relative
pressure is set as 0.0 Pa. The thermal contact resistance between
Dw @P the fin and base is neglected as a consideration of continuity mate-
z  momentum q ¼ þ div ðl grand wÞ ð6cÞ
@t @z rial. The interface area of the heat sink and air is considered to have
no thermal contact resistance and a no-slip wall. The thermal con-
Energy equation:
ductivity of the air and aluminum heat sink is 0.0265 W/m
K, and
Di 237 W/m
K, respectively. The specific heat, density, and viscosity of
q ¼ p div U þ div ðk grand T Þ þ U ð7Þ
Dt the air is 1.005 kJ/kg
K, 1.149 kg/m3 and 1.629  105 kg/m
s,

Fig. 4. The computational domains of air and laterally perforated plate-fin heat sink.
 S. Chingulpitak et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 138 (2019) 293–303 297

Table 1
Design parameters of laterally perforated plate-fin heat sink for numerical investigation. Unit: mm.

Base Fin Perforation

Height of base, Hb 0.5 Length of fin, Lf 75 Number of perforation, Np 14, 27, 75
Width of base, Wb 4 Height of fin, Hf 25 Number of perforation row, NR 2, 3, 5
Length of base, Lb 75 Thickness of fin, tf 1 Diameter of perforation, Dp 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Fig. 5. Grid independence for solid fin and laterally perforated plate-fin for
Fig. 6. Comparison between numerical results of solid fin heat sink and measured
Re = 3529: (a) Pressure drop (b) Heat transfer rate.
data: (a) Pressure drop and (b) Thermal resistance.

respectively. The governing equations under considered boundary the computation domains varies between 9,394,572 and
conditions are solved by using the commercial computational fluid 12,193,439.
dynamics software ANSYS CFX 17.0. The high-resolution transient
scheme is employed to discretize the governing equations. The 3.3. Validation and optimization
iteration of numerical solutions is repeated until the residual root
mean square (RMS) errors of all parameters are less than 105. For The validation of numerical results is carried out by comparison
all domains, the mesh is generated with a nonuniform structured with the measured data for the SFHS and the experimental results
mesh. The grid independence is considered carefully to find opti- of Shaeri and Bonner [24] for the LAP-PFHS. The heat transfer coef-
mum mesh elements that give accurate simulation results with a ficient for convection and Nusselt number are calculated as fol-
proper number of elements, as shown in Fig. 5. For example, the lows, respectively,
number of elements for LAP-PFHS with Dp = 10 mm is investigated
Qa
at 2,106,697, 9,394,572 and 28,833,837 elements. The simulation h¼
ð8Þ
results show that a number of elements beyond 9,394,572 leads Aconv T wall;av g  T a;av g
to a less than 0.26% variation in the pressure drop and 0.43% for
the heat transfer rate. However, it cannot be used for all heat sink hDch
Nu ¼ ð9Þ
models. Hence, in this numerical study, the number of elements for k
298 S. Chingulpitak et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 138 (2019) 293–303

The porosity (/) of the LAP-PFHS is calculated by the ratio of

void volume of the perforated fin to volume of the solid fin, as
follows:

Np pD2p
/¼ ð11Þ
4Hf Lf
The indicator parameter is used to determine the optimum size
of LAP-PFHS, as shown in Eq. (12). The thermal performance factor
(g) can be calculated from

ðNu=Nus Þ
g¼ ð12Þ
ðf =f s Þ

where Nus and fs are the Nusselt number and friction factor of the
SFHS.

4. Results and discussion

The prediction results of thermal resistance and pressure drop

Fig. 7. Comparison between numerical results of laterally perforated plate-fin heat
sink and experimental data of Shaeri and Bonner [24]: (a) Pressure drop and (b)
Thermal resistance.
according to the present model are validated with the measured
data and experimental results of Shaeri and Bonner [24]. The com-
parison results between the numerical results and measured data
for the SFHS are presented in Fig. 6. The mean absolute errors
(MAEs) of the comparison results are 6.2% and 4.9% for the pressure
drop and thermal resistance, respectively. Fig. 7 shows the compar-
ison results between the predicted results and the experimental
results of Shaeri and Bonner [24]. According to their study, the
dimensions of the plate-fin heat sink are Lb = Lf = 203 mm,
Hf = 22.86 mm, Wch = 2.18 mm and tf = 0.96 mm. The comparison
results show that the MAEs of pressure drop and thermal resis-
tance for LAP-PFHSs with square perforations are 3.6% and 5.3%,
respectively. Moreover, it shows that the tendency of predicted
results is consistent with their experimental results. Thus, it can
be summarized that the present model is reasonably accurate to
predict the pressure and temperature of other plate-fin heat sinks.
Consequently, the optimum size of circular perforation is investi-
gated under the same perforation area. The convective heat trans-
fer area, distance between perforations and porosities of all case
studies are presented in Table 2.

4.1. Flow behavior

where Aconv represents the total convective heat transfer area.
Twall,avg and Ta,avg represent the average temperatures of the wall The air flow behaviors inside LAP-PFHS for Np = 27 and
surface and air, respectively. Dp = 5 mm are demonstrated with velocity vector. From the simu-
The friction factor in the flow passage of a plate-fin heat sink is lation results, the flow visualizations are presented with 3 different
calculated by is calculated from the pressure drop of heat sink, as distances of the x-z plane on the negative direction of the y-axis, as
follows: shown in Fig. 8. It is evident that the air flow behavior can be sep-
arated into recirculation and mixing zones. The recirculation zone
2DPDch
f ¼ ð10Þ is at the upstream side of the circular perforation for all sections, as
qV 2ch Lch shown in Fig. 8(a)–(c). It is the cause of increasing the width of the

Table 2
Details of the convective heat transfer area, position, and porosity of laterally perforated plate-fin heat sink.

Dp (mm) Np = 14 (NR = 2) Np = 27 (NR = 3) Np = 75 (NR = 5)

2 2
Aconv (mm ) Sx/Dp Sy/Dp / Aconv (mm ) Sx/Dp Sy/Dp / Aconv (mm2) Sx/Dp Sy/Dp /
1 4047 9.5 8.7 0.01 4067 7.6 6.5 0.01 4143 4.8 4.3 0.03
2 4025 4.8 4.5 0.02 4025 3.9 3.4 0.05 4025 2.4 2.3 0.13
3 3959 3.3 3.1 0.05 3898 2.6 2.3 0.10 3672 1.6 1.6 0.28
4 3849 2.5 2.4 0.09 3686 2.0 1.8 0.18 3083 1.2 1.2 0.50
5 3695 2.0 2.0 0.15 3389 1.6 1.5 0.28 – – – –
6 3497 1.7 1.7 0.21 3007 1.4 1.3 0.41 – – – –
7 3255 1.5 1.5 0.29 2541 1.2 1.1 0.55 – – – –
8 2969 1.3 1.4 0.38 – – – – – – – –
9 2640 1.2 1.3 0.48 – – – – – – – –
10 2266 1.1 1.2 0.59 – – – – – – – –
 S. Chingulpitak et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 138 (2019) 293–303 299

Fig. 8. Flow behavior of air inside a circular perforation for Dp = 5.0 mm and Re = 2646: (a) at the perforation center (b) at Dp/6 section and (c) at Dp/3 section.

flow channel, which results in a separated flow. Moreover, the size
of the recirculation zone is smaller when the distance between the
horizontal plane and perforation center is greater. This is because
the available flow distance inside the circular perforation at the
upper and lower edge regions (section C-C) is shorter than in the
other regions (sections A-A and B-B). At the mixing zone, the air
flows, striking the edge of the circular perforation and returning
to the main flow region, which results in an increase of turbulent
flow.
Fig. 9 proposed the air flow behavior between two adjacent per-
forations with three different distances between perforations (Sx)
under the same perforation diameter (Dp = 4 mm) and Reynolds
300 S. Chingulpitak et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 138 (2019) 293–303

Fig. 9. Flow behavior of air inside two adjacent perforations with three different distance between perforations (Sx) for Dp = 4.0 mm and Re = 4413: (a) Sx/Dp = 2.5 (b) Sx/
Dp = 2.0 and (c) Sx/Dp = 1.2.

number (Re = 4413). The air flow behavior is presented with the
velocity vector on an x-z plane. The simulation results show that
the air flow behavior in section A-A is similar to that in section
B-B, as shown in Fig. 9(a) and (b), respectively. The air strikes the
downstream side of the perforation, which results in the mixing
of air flow. Then, the air flow reattaches to the fin surface between
the two perforations. However, the reattachment flow is not found
in the C-C section, as shown in Fig. 9(c). Moreover, it can be
observed that the recirculation zone in section C-C is larger than
that of other sections. This is because the shear layer of the short
rib provides turbulence more than that of long rib and leads to a
larger recirculation region, as described by Kindere and Ganap-
athisubramani [35].
4.2. Effect of perforation diameter
The LAP-PFHS is investigated with 10 different perforation
diameters. In all case studies, the lateral perforations are consid-
ered under a given fin area of 1875 mm2 (75  25 mm). Fig. 10
shows the pressure drop of the LAP-PFHS with various perforation
diameters and Reynolds numbers. Fig. 10(a), (b) and (c) present the
pressure drop of the LAP-PFHS at Np = 14, 27 and 75, respectively.
 S. Chingulpitak et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 138 (2019) 293–303
Fig. 10. The effect of perforation diameters on pressure drop: (a) Np = 14 (b) Np = 27
(c) Np = 75.
At the same as Np and Re, it can be observed that the total pressure
drop increases with increasing perforation diameter. The total
pressure drop continuously increases, although the frictional pres-
sure drop is decreased due to the decrease of the surface area of the
perforated plate fin. This is because the effect of pressure drag due
to the perforation on total pressure drop is dominant, as explained
by Gatski and Grosch [36]. The results indicate that the pressure
drop across the LAP-PFHS increases about 96.3% when the diame-
ter of perforation is changed from 1 mm to 10 mm. Moreover, it
301
Fig. 11. The effect of perforation diameters on heat transfer rate: (a) Np = 14 (b)
Np = 27 (c) Np = 75.
can be observed that the maximum pressure drops for each perfo-
ration number are obtained at the largest perforation diameter.
Meanwhile, the pressure drop is not affected by the circular perfo-
ration at Dp = 1 mm. This is because the air flow over the perforated
plate fin with Dp = 1 mm acts like the flow over the solid fin. Thus,
it can be concluded that the effect of perforation diameter on the
total pressure drop is achieved at Dp > 1 mm.
302 S. Chingulpitak et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 138 (2019) 293–303
Fig. 12. The effect of numbers of circular perforations on pressure drop.
Fig. 13. The effect of numbers of circular perforations on heat transfer rate.
As shown in Fig. 11, the relationships between the heat transfer
rate and perforation diameters are investigated with 5 different
Reynolds numbers. It can be observed that the effect of perforation
diameter that creates more turbulent flow on the heat transfer rate
is obtained at Dp > 1 mm. For Dp = 1 mm, the heat transfer rate of
the LAP-PFHS is lower than that of the SFHS, although the convec-
tive heat transfer area is greater. This is because the air inside the
channel cannot flow into the small circular perforation. Thus, the
added heat transfer area due to the fin thickness and the perfora-
tion circumference does not result in heat transfer enhancement.
At Np = 14 and Re = 2646, as shown in Fig. 11(a), the heat transfer
rate of the LAP-PFHS increases by about 9.8% when the perforation
diameter is changed from 1 mm to 6 mm. The maximum heat
transfer rates for Np = 27 and 75 are achieved at Dp = 5 and 3 mm,
as shown in Fig. 11(b) and (c), respectively. However, it is notewor-
thy that the heat transfer rate decreases when the perforation
diameter is higher. This is because the increase of the perforation
diameter results in the decrease of the heat transfer area, which
decreases the heat transfer rate.
4.3. Effect of perforation number
The effects of perforation number on pressure drop and heat
transfer rate are presented in Figs. 12 and 13, respectively. The
LAP-PFHSs are investigated with four different perforation diame-
ters of 1, 2, 3 and 4 mm. At a given the perforation diameter, the
Fig. 14. The thermal performance factor with various diameters and numbers of
circular perforations.
total pressure drop of the LAP-PFHS for Np = 75 is higher than that
of other perforation numbers. In the case of Dp = 4.0 mm, the total
pressure drop rapidly increases by about 50–63% when the number
of perforations is changed between 27 and 75, as shown in Fig. 12.
This can be explained by the air flow behavior inside two adjacent
perforations, as shown in Fig. 9. That is, the increase of perforation
number results in the increase of pressure drag along the flow
channel. Fig. 13 presents the numerical results of the heat transfer
rate of LAP-PFHSs with various perforation numbers and diame-
ters, as well as Reynold numbers. For the perforation diameter of
1 mm, the heat transfer rate dramatically decreases when the
number of perforations increases. The results demonstrate that
LAP-PFHSs provide a lower heat transfer rate than SFHSs in the
range of 0.9–1.7%. For Dp = 2.0 mm and 3.0 mm, the present data
show that the heat transfer rate of LAP-PFHSs increases when the
number of perforations increases. However, the maximum heat
transfer rate is obtained at Np = 27 and Dp = 4 mm. In the range of
increased heat transfer rate, a high number of perforations pro-
vides a higher heat transfer rate than a low number of perforations.
This is because the increase of perforation number and the distri-
bution of perforation row (NR = 2, 3 and 5) lead to the increase of
turbulent flow along the flow channel. After that, the heat transfer
rate dramatically decreases when the number of perforations
increases. At Re = 4413, it is clearly seen that the heat transfer rate
of Np = 75 is lower than that of Np = 14 and 27. This is because the
reduction of the heat transfer area due to the increase of perfora-
tion number is dominant.
4.4. Optimization
In this study, the LAP-PFHS is studied with 21 different geome-
tries. Based on the typical size of the solid fin, the dimensions of
the laterally perforated fin are given as tf = 1 mm, Lf = 75 mm and
Hf = 25 mm. In order to obtain the optimal LAP-PFHS, the thermal
performance factor (g) is presented, as shown in Fig. 14. It is
defined as the ratio of the Nusselt number of the perforated plate
fin to that of the solid fin to the friction factor of the perforated
plate fin to that of the solid fin, as shown in Eq. (12). For all condi-
tions, the numerical results show that LAP-PFHSs with Dp = 1 and
2 mm provide lower thermal performance than SFHSs. Moreover,
it can be observed that the thermal performance (g) of LAP-
PFHSs decreases when the Reynolds number increases. This is
because the total pressure drop is the dominant effect in the ther-
mal performance (g) of LAP-PFHSs. At Re = 2646, the optimal diam-
eter and number of circular perforation are obtained at Dp = 5 mm
 S. Chingulpitak et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 138 (2019) 293–303
and Np = 27, respectively. The optimized LAP-PFHS provides about
10.6% higher thermal performance than the SFHS under the same
conditions. Meanwhile, it can reduce the volume of heat sink mate-
rial to 28%, which is presented in terms of porosity (/), as shown in
Table 2. The maximum reduction of the volume of heat sink mate-
rial by about 59% is achieved at Dp = 10 mm and Np = 14. It provides
higher thermal performance than SFHS by about 8%.
5. Conclusions
This paper presents the thermal performance of a laterally per-
forated plate-fin heat sink (LAP-PFHS) under a given area for perfo-
ration. The main aim is to find the optimal design parameters of
LAP-PFHSs with circular perforations. The effects of perforation
diameter (Dp) and perforation number (Np) on pressure drop, heat
transfer rate, and thermal performance are proposed. The solid fin
heat sink (SFHS) is presented to compare with the LAP-PFHSs. The
present numerical model is validated by comparing the results
with the experimental data from available literature. The mean
absolute error of the comparison results between LAP-PFHS with
square perforation and experimental data is up to 5.3% for
thermal resistance and 3.6% for the pressure drop. For Np = 14,
the highest heat transfer rate is obtained between Dp = 5–6 mm.
For Np = 27 and 75, the maximum heat transfer rate is achieved
at Dp = 4–5 mm and 3 mm, respectively. Moreover, the present
results show that LAP-PFHSs with Dp = 1 mm provide a lower heat
transfer rate than SFHSs for all conditions. In addition, the thermal
performance factor (g) is proposed to find the optimum LAP-PFHS.
From the results, it can be concluded that the diameter and
number of perforations have a significant effect on the thermal
performance of LAP-PFHSs. The best LAP-PFHS performance is
obtained at Dp = 5 mm and Np = 27.
Conflict of interest
We and our institution don’t have any conflict of interest and
don’t have any financial or other relationship with other people
or organizations that may inappropriately influence this work.
Acknowledgments
The first and fourth authors acknowledge the support provided
by the ‘‘Research Chair Grant” National Science and Technology
Development Agency (NSTDA) and King Mongkut’s University of
Technology Thonburi through the ‘‘KMUTT 55th Anniversary Com-
memorative Fund”. The second author would like to thank interna-
tional co-operation in research provided by the National Research
Council of Thailand (NRCT) and the National Research Foundation
of Korea (NRF), and visiting professorship provided by KMUTT.
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