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Qpedia Oct08 How Air Velocity Affects HS Performance
Qpedia Oct08 How Air Velocity Affects HS Performance
Introduction
A device’s temperature affects its op-
Air, Ta
erational performance and lifetime. To
achieve a desired device temperature,
Heat sink
the heat dissipated by the device must
be transferred along some path to the Rhs
TIM
Resistance to heat transfer is called
thermal resistance. The thermal resis- RTIM
tance of a heat sink decreases with Component case, Tc Q
.
Component
more heat transfer area. However, be-
cause device and equipment sizes are
decreasing, heat sink sizes are also Figure 1. Exploded View of a Straight Fin Heat Sink with Corresponding Thermal Resis-
tance Diagram.
growing smaller. On the other hand,
.
device heat dissipation is increasing. heat sink selection criteria. Q RTIM, as shown in Equation 2.
Therefore, designing a heat transfer The heat transfer rate of a heat sink, , .
path in a limited space that minimizes depends on the difference between the Q = (Thot - Tcold)/Rt = (Tc - Ta)/Rt (1)
thermal resistance is critical to the ef- component case temperature, Tc, and
fective design of electronic equipment. the air temperature, Ta, along with the where
total thermal resistance, Rt. This rela-
This article discusses the effects of air tionship is shown in Equation 1. For Rt = RTIM + Rsp + Rhs (2)
flow velocity on the experimentally de- a basic heat sink design, as shown in
termined thermal resistance of different Figure 1, the total thermal resistance Therefore, to compare different heat
heat sink designs. To be able to com- depends on the sum of the heat sink sink designs, the thermal interface re-
pare these designs, we need to first resistance, Rhs, the spreading resis- sistance, RTIM, and the spreading resis-
review basic heat transfer theory as tance in the heat sink base, Rsp, and tance, Rsp, was similar among the heat
applied to heat sinks. Previously pub- the thermal interface resistance from sinks tested.
lished work is discussed, along with the component to the heat sink base,
12
For this study, the same thermal in- on the steady state temperature of the tests.
terface material (TIM) was used with heat sinks, unlike Lasance and Egg- 2. The base thickness, width, and
all heat sinks. This minimized the dif- ink, whose test are based on transient length were the same for all the
ference in the thermal interface resis- data. The maxiFLOWTM heat sinks heat sinks tested.
tance, RTIM, between heat sink tests. As were found to have the lowest thermal 3. The same size heat source area
is normal, the spreading resistance of a resistance, especially for air flow veloc- was used for the different heat sink
heat sink’s base, Rsp, increased with de- ity below 2 m/s [4]. tests.
creasing base thickness and conductiv- 4. The heat sinks had the same fin
ity. It also increased with an increasing The heat sinks tests in this article were height.
difference in the heat sink base area conducted in a wind tunnel and the
and the heat dissipation area [2]. data points were taken at steady state About the Heat Sinks Tested
values. The heat sinks were selected Heat sinks with 42 x 42 mm and with
Lasance and Eggink have provided a based on the following heat sink selec- 27 x 27 mm base nominal dimensions
method to rank a heat sink for certain tion criteria: were selected, as they are common
applications [3]. This measurement is sizes used in electronics cooling. Fin
based on extracting the average heat 1. The same thermal interface mate- types included straight fin, pin fin,
transfer coefficients from time-depen- rial was used for all the heat sink elliptical fin and ATS’ maxiFLOW, as
dant temperature curves as a function
of velocity and bypass. The measured Table 1. Types of Heat Sinks Tested, With Their Dimensions and Mass.
effective heat transfer coefficient is
L w H Mass,
then scaled by mass, volume, weight # Heat Sink Type Part No.
[mm] [mm] [mm] m (g)
or height. This provides several per-
formance metrics to give designers a 1 Cylindrical Pin Fin (CPF) 42 42 24 CPF4224 32
novel way to rank heat sinks in con-
ditions that resemble an application. 2 Elliptical Pin Fin (EPF) 42.5 42.5 33 EPF4233 36
Heat sinks with heights between 5 and
20 mm were tested [3]. In addition to 3 Cylindrical Pin Fin (CPF) 25 25 25 CPF2525 12
varying heights, the heat sink base
thickness varied from 1.2 to 3 mm. The 4 maxiFLOWTM 42.5 42.5 17.5 MF4217 28
base width and length varied from 42.2
to 49.8 mm. The ratio between the width 5 maxiFLOWTM 25 25 17.5 MF2517 12
and length of the heat sink also varied,
i.e. both square and rectangular base 6 Elliptical Pin Fin (EPF) 25 25 33 EPF2533 12
shapes were used. ATS maxiFLOWTM
and pin fin heat sinks were tested, with 7 Straight Fin (SF) 42.5 42.5 17.5 SF4217 18
the maxiFLOWTM series showing the
8 Straight Fin (SF) 27 27 17.5 SF2517 10
lowest thermal resistance [3].
Figure 2. Various Heat Sinks Types Tested: Straight Fin (a), Elliptical Pin Fin (b), Cylindrical Pin Fin (c), and ATS’ maxiFLOW™ (d).
H Data
w logger
Thermocouple L
hole
Processed Results
The heat sinks were compared based
on their thermal resistances. The heat
transfer rate from heat sink base to air
is given by Equation 3 (below). From
here, the heat sink’s thermal resistance
is calculated using Equation 4. This as-
sumes that the heat transferred by the
sink to the air is equal to the power in-
put to the heat source. After applying
Equation 4 to the experimental data,
the results are plotted in Figures 7 and
8.
.
Q = (Tb - Ta)/R (3)
R = (Tb - Ta)/P (4)
Figure 6. The Wind Tunnel Test Section. Heat Sinks EPF4233 and CPF4225 are Mounted
Figure 7 shows that heat sink thermal Side by Side.
resistance decreases for natural con-
vection. The maxiFLOWTM heat sinks had a higher thermal resistance than drical pin fin heat sinks had about the
had the lowest thermal resistance for the maxiFLOW heat sink, and the 17 same thermal resistance as the straight
natural convection of the sinks tested. mm elliptical pin fins had the highest fin heat sinks. If it had been possible to
The 33 mm elliptical pin fin heat sinks thermal resistance. The 25 mm cylin- cut the cylindrical pin fin heat sinks to
30 16
Heat sink thermal resistance, R [K/W]
20
CPF2525 10 CPF4224
EPF2533 EPF4233
15 MF2517 8 MF4217
SF2517 SF4217
EPF2517 6 EPF4217
10
4
5
2
0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Figure 7. Thermal Resistance of 27 mm (a) and 42 mm (b) Heat Sinks for Natural Convection, Plotted Against Input Power.
a height of 17 mm, they would have had a higher thermal tance. However, once they were cut to a height of 17 mm,
resistance than the straight fin heat sinks. they had the highest thermal resistance. This was similar to
the natural convection tests. After the 33 mm EPF, the maxi-
For forced convection, Figure 8 shows that the thermal resis- FLOW heat sinks had the best thermal resistance. The 42
tance of all the heat sinks tested decreased with increased mm straight fin and cylindrical pin fin heat sinks had similar
air flow rate. A 33 mm tall EPF had the lowest thermal resis- thermal resistances.
16
12 7
Heat sink thermal resistance, R [K/W]
5
8
CPF2525 CPF4224
EPF2533 4 EPF4233
6 MF2517 MF4217
SF2517 3 SF4217
EPF2517 EPF4217
4
2
2
1
0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Air velocity, V [m/s] Air velocity, V [m/s]
Figure 8. Thermal Resistance of 27 mm (a) and 42 mm (b) Heat Sinks for Forced Convection, Plotted Against Air Flow Velocity.
A criterion for the heat sink selection perature as the fin base. For the heat culated. This area was then used in
was that the sinks be the same height. sinks tested, the thermal efficiency was Equation 8. Because elliptical pin fins
However, the cylindrical pin fin heat in the order of 98%. Therefore, it was were tested at two heights, their results
sinks were 25 mm high. A possible valid to assume that the thermal effi- were used to verify that the method
scaling method is to calculate the heat ciency of the fin was 100%. Modifying used to scale the heat sinks was valid.
transfer coefficient, h, for a heat sink. Equation 3 resulted in Equation 7. The The results for the natural convection
The heat transfer coefficient was then heat transfer coefficient was then cal- tests appear in Figure 9. They show
used to calculate the new thermal re- culated using Equation 8. that there was not a good relationship
sistance of a shorter heat sink of the between the heat sinks of the same
.
same type. To calculate the heat trans- Q = (Tb - Ti)/R = hAHT (Tb-Ti) (7) base dimensions. For a specific heat
fer coefficient, it was assumed that the sink base size, the heat transfer coef-
heat sink base temperature measured h= 1 (8) ficient for the elliptical pin fin heat sinks
RA HT
was the fin base temperature and differed by 25%. This is shown in Fig-
that the fin had a thermal efficiency of Each heat sink was first measured and ure 9 (b).
100%, i.e. the fin tip had the same tem- the heat transfer area, AHT, was cal-
10 9
Heat sink heat transfer coefficient, h
9 8
8 7
CPF2525
7 CPF4224
EPF2533 6
6 EPF4233 EPF2533
[W/m²·K]
[W/m²·K]
5
MF2517 EPF4233
5
MF4217 EPF2517
4
4 SF2517 EPF4217
SF4217 3
3 EPF2517
EPF4217 2
2
1 1
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Input power, P [W] Input power, P [W]
80 70
70 60
60 CPF2525
CPF4224 50
EPF2533
50
EPF4233 EPF2533
[W/m²·K]
[W/m²·K]
40
MF2517 EPF4233
40
MF4217 EPF2517
30 EPF4217
SF2517
30
SF4217
EPF2517 20
20
EPF4217
10 10
0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Figure 10 shows the heat transfer co- sink, the thermal resistance of a 17 mm Having shown that it was not possible
efficient data for the forced convection high heat sink was estimated. These to scale the heat sinks for natural con-
tests. Figure 10 (b) shows that the heat values are plotted in Figure 11 with the vection, Figure 12 shows the thermal
transfer coefficient for elliptical pin fin thermal resistance values of the other resistance of the 17 mm high heat sink
heat sinks with 42 mm base dimen- 17 mm high heat sinks. Figure 11 shows for natural convection.
sions differed by an average of 1.6%. that the maxiFLOW heat sinks had the
For a 25 mm base, the difference was best thermal resistance for 17 mm high Summary
on average 13.7%. This indicates that heat sinks, followed by the straight fin By documenting the experimental
the heat transfer coefficient can be sinks. The elliptical and cylindrical pin performance of various types of heat
used to scale a heat sink. However, this fin heat sinks had the highest thermal sinks, it was found that for the same
may only be used for heat sinks of the resistance of the sinks tested. Figure base dimensions and fin height, maxi-
same type and heat sink base area. 11 also shows that the maxiFLOW heat FLOW heat sinks had the lowest ther-
Using the heat transfer coefficient cal- sink were especially effective at air flow mal resistance. Straight fin heat sinks
culated for the cylindrical pin fin heat velocities below 1.5 to 2 m/s. had a higher thermal resistance than
12 8
Heat sink thermal resistance, R [K/W]
Heat sink thermal resistance, R [K/W]
7
10
6
8
5
MF2517 MF4217
SF2517 SF4217
6 4
EPF2517 EPF4217
CPF2517 CPF4217
3
4
2
2
1
0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Figure 11. Heat Sink Thermal Resistance for 17 mm High Heat Sinks for Forced Convection. The Values of the Cylindrical Pin Fin Heat
Sinks Are Based on the Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient Values of the Taller Heat Sink.
18
16 30
14
25
12
20
10
MF4217 MF2517
8 SF4217 15 SF2517
EPF4217 EPF2517
6
10
4
5
2
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Figure 12. Thermal Resistance of 17 mm High Heat Sink, For the 27 mm (a) and 42 mm (b) Heat Sinks For Natural Convection, Plotted
Against Input Power.
the maxiFLOWTM heat sinks. Cylindrical and elliptical pin fin 4. Forghan, F., Goldthwaite, D., Ulinski, M., and Metghal-
heat sinks had the worst thermal resistance of the heat sinks chi, H., Experimental and Theoretical Investigation of
tested. Thermal Performance of Heat Sinks, ISME, 2001
References:
1. Sergent, J. and Krum, A., Thermal Management Hand-
book for Electronic Assemblies, First Edition, McGraw-
Hill, 1998.
2. Qpedia Thermal eMagazine, Spreading Thermal Resis-
tance; Its Definition and Control, Vol. 1, Issue 7, 2007.
3. Lasance, C., and Eggink, H., A Method to Rank Heat
Sinks in Practice: The Heat Sink Performance Tester,
Semiconductor Thermal Measurement and Manage-
ment Symposium, IEEE, 2005.
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