Thermal Management of

Microelectronics Devices
using Metal Foam Heat
Sink
SUPERVISOR:
DR. MUHAMMAD ANWAR
1. Presented by:
TAHA RAHAT (180501030)
2. Motivation

 Failure of electronic devices due to critical temperatures is a major concern in

microelectronics

 Conventional methods unable to keep up with increasing demand for electronics

cooling

 Novel methods needed to tackle this problem

 Our project can prove to be one of these novel methods

3. Metal Foam

 Cellular structure with gas filed pores.

 Low mass with high exchange area.

 Good thermophysical properties.

 Properties depend on porosity and pore density.

4. Research Gap

 Different models have been developed for finding heat transfer rate in metal
foams for nano-fluids and PCM.
 Water based cooling system with foam technology is still under research. This
project involves comparison of analytical and numerical simulations to validate
result for water cooled foam technology.
 Moreover, the pore size of foam is related to the type of cooling fluid and its
thermophysical property. We will try and find the optimal foam properties for the
specific fluid i.e., water.
 5. Literature Review
Year Author Title Important Points
2005 A. Bhattacharya and R.L Metal Foam and Finned • For a given pore size, the heat transfer rate increases with porosity.
Mahajan Metal Foam Heat Sinks for
Electronics Cooling in • If the porosity is held constant, the heat transfer rate is found to be
Buoyancy-Induced lower at higher pore densities.
Convection
2010 N.A. Roberts and D.G. Convective Performance of • The addition of nanoparticles results in an enhancement of the
Walker Nanofluids in Commercial convection coefficient of a fluid in the commercial system.
Electronics Cooling
Systems • Nanofluids have roughly the same performance in real systems as
they do in well controlled experimental systems without a large
increase in required pumping power.
2010 Maryam Haghighi and Estimation of Effective • It can be demonstrated that inclusion of high porosity open cell
Norollah Kasiri Thermal Conductivity metal foam into the structure of commercially available air coolers
Enhancement Using Foam enhances the effective thermal conductivity, the heat transfer
in Heat Exchangers Based coefficient and the thermal performance considerably. The
on a New Analytical Model relationship between conductivity and foam geometrical
specifications is very important for efficient design of foam heat
exchangers.
Year Author Title Important Points
2013 S.S. Khaleduzzaman,and Nanofluids for Thermal • Nanofluids are promising fluids that can help to cool electronics
R.Saidur, Performance Improvement devices.
in Cooling of Electronic
Device • CuO-water nanofluid provides better thermal performance
improvement compared to Al2O3-water and SiC-water nanofluid.
2015 Huijin Xu, Liang Gong, and Flow and heat transfer • Velocity profile of nanofluid in metal foam is very uniform and the
Minghai Xu characteristics of nanofluid LTNE effect of nanofluid in metal foam is obvious when the
flowing through metal difference between thermal conductivity of fluid and that of solid
foams is large.

• Both pressure drop and Nu number for nanofluid in metal foams

increase with an increase in volume fraction of nanoparticles.
2015 I. Mehmedagic and J. Krug Heat Sink Design and • Increasing number of fins past optimal value worsens heat sink
Optimization thermal performance.

• Thinner fins decrease weight of heat sink and improve thermal

performance
Year Author Title
2016 Navid O. Ghaziani and Convective Heat Transfer of
Fatemeh Hassanipour Al2O3 Nanofluids in Porous
Media
2017 Salim Boulahrouz, Yvan CFD Simulation of Heat
Avenas, and A. Chehhat Transfer and Fluid Flow
within Mettalic foam in
Forced Convection
Enviroment
Important Points
• The addition of nanoparticles to the coolant slurry has a significant
effect on the heat transfer rate when used in conjunction with metal
foam.
• Increasing particle concentration causes heat transfer enhancement,
however this role becomes weaker after a threshold.
• Due to the strong flow-mixing capability of the foams structures.
The velocity profile remains unchanged along the flow direction.
• The pressure drop becomes larger under the condition of the forced
convection.
• The effect of the imposed heat flux on the temperature field is due
mainly to the heat conduction inside the porous matrix.
Year Author Title
2019 Tauseef‑ur‑ Rehman  · Thermal performance
Hafz Muhammad Ali analysis of metallic
foam‑based heat sinks
embedded with RT‑54HC
parafn: an experimental
investigation for electronic
cooling
2019 Jakub Skibinski, Karol Influence of Pore Size
Cwieka, Variation on Thermal
Conductivity of Open-
Porous Foams
2020 Michele Celli, and Antonio Flow and Convection in
Barletta Metal Foams: a Survey and
New CFD Results
Important Points
• Experimental investigation is carried out to single out the metallic
foam-PCM-based heat sink performance for various
configurations. Copper and nickel foam-based PCM composites
are analyzed for various fractions of PCM. Results revealed that
incorporation of the PCM within metallic foam reduces the base
temperature of the heat sink. Furthermore, copper foam-based sink
depicted lesser base temperature when compared to that of nickel
foam. Maximum utilization of PCM’s latent heat is found at 24 W
and the reduction in base temperature is found to be 26%.
Temperature of the sink is reduced as fraction of PCM is added
and vice versa.
• Higher thermal conductivity can be obtained for structures with
homogeneous pore volume distribution.
• Thermal conductivity is strongly related to porosity.
• The Darcy-Forchheimer model and LTNE model is a good
approximation for the flow through periodic porous structures.
6. OBJECTIVES

A configuration of metal
A cooling system that can
foam and cooling fluid that
be used for effective
provides best thermal
microelectronics cooling
performance

Improve the service life and

Perform a parametric
reliability of microelectronic
study to obtain the best
devices
results
7. METHODOLOGY

Literature survey of already existing methods and technology used

in electronics cooling

Use of CREO parametric to generate the CAD model for metal foam
regions. And 2D sketch is created and simulated in ansys design
moduler and fluent

Use of ANSYS FLUENT for simulation of the model and generation

of results.
 8.Models
2D sketch of model that
involves 3 body structure. The outer
regions represent inlet and outlet of
the system while the middle block
is a porous medium between them.
 Porous media approach is used
8. Models
A: low porosity foam
 3d model of foam with low porosity i.e. 53% obtained by differing actual
volume from cubic volume of structure.
8. Models
B: High Porosity Foam
3d model of 78% porous structure designed in creo
parametric software.
 Both structures are design through same approach of
spherical pattern.
 These models are solid
geometries which will be
converted into fluid domain
for analysis.
9. Results and simulations
A. Mesh
Inlet region Outlet region
Elements 0.7million

Avg quality 0.81186

Min quality 0.34538

skewness 0.6

Structured 1mm
element size
Non- 0.5mm Structured and non-
structured structured mesh
element size regions
 9. Results and simulations
B: Convergence

 Mass flow rate of cooling fluid for liquid cooled CPUs is

0.0245 Kg/s
 Outlet mass flow become constant and equal to inlet
mass flow representing mass conservation.
 9. Results and simulations
C: Thermal effects

Temperature contours

 Heat flux is generated by the

processor. This heat is
transferred to the cooling
fluid through convection.
 For core i9 processors the
heat flux is 68-90 W/ and
applied heat flux is 85 W/ Heat flux
 Ambient and inlet
temperatures are set to be
300K.
9. Results and simulations
D: Thermal effects

Inlet temperature contour Outlet temperature contour

9. Results and simulations
C: Physical parameters
Pressure Outlet zone
 The geometrical structure provides
a great resistance to flow which
develop high and low pressure
regions at inlet and outlet
respectively.
 Pressure drop is the greatest
shortcoming of complex structures Inlet zone
like this.
9. Results and simulations
C: Physical parameters
Velocity Profile

 Several surfaces are removed

to identify the liquid pathways.
Low pressure regions offer high
velocity fluid.

inlet
10. REMAINING WORK
Any additional articles needed for consultation related to selection of
metal foam for heatsink.

Selection of Metal foam porosity and pore density for

maximum performance of heatsink.

Optimization of the model and compilation of results.

Writing of Thesis and designing of project poster.

11. Conclusion

 Metal foams have tendency to compete other fin-structured heat sinks. Heat
extraction is efficient at the cost of pressure loss but it can further be optimized to
enhance these features.
 Particle path lines allows us to see the pathway of fluid which help us to minimize
the size while keeping performance optimal.

 Our system can be made better by creating a more streamline structure.

 The main objective of the project modelling and simulating a heat exchanging
components for microelectronics to increase their reliability and service life.
10. References

Ambreen, T., & Kim, M.-H. (2018). Effect of fin shape on the thermal performance of nanofluid-cooled
micro pin-fin heat sinks. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 12.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2018.05.164

Bhattacharya, A., & Mahajan, R. L. (2005). Metal Foam and Finned Metal Foam Heat Sinks for Electronics
Cooling in Buoyancy-Induced Convection. Journal of Electronic packaging, 8.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1115/1.2229225

Boulahrouz, S., Avenas, Y., & Chehhat, A. (2017). CFD Simulation of Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow within
Mettalic foam in Forced Convection Enviroment. Mechanics and Mechanical Engineering, 26.

Ghaziani, N. O., & Hassanipour, F. (2016). Convective Heat Transfer of Al2O3 Nanofluids in Porous
Media. Journal of Heat Transfer, 7. doi:https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4034936
Khaleduzzman, S. S., Saidur, R., Selvaraj, J., Mahbubul, I. M., Sohel, M. R., & Shahrul,
I. M. (2013). Nanofluids for Thermal Performance Improvement in Cooling of Electronic
Device. Advanced Materials Research, 7. doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.832.218

Mehmedagic, I., & Krug, J. (2015). Heat Sink Design and Optimization. 32.

Pulvirenti, B., Celli, M., & Barletta, A. (2020). Flow and Convection in Metal Foams: a
Survey and New CFD Results. Fluids, 18. doi:10.3390/fluids5030155

Roberts, N. A., & Walker, D. G. (2010). Convective Performance of Nanofluids in

Commercial Electronics Cooling Systems. Applied Thermal Engineering, 6.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2010.06.023

Selvakumar, P., & Suresh, S. (2012). Use of Al2O3-Cu/Water Hybrid Nanofluid in an

Electronic Heat Sink. IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing
Technology, 8. doi:10.1109/TCPMT.2012.2211018
Skibinski, J., Cwieka, K., Ibrahim, S. H., & Wejrzanowski, T. (2019). Influence of
Pore Size Variation on Thermal Conductivity of Open-Porous Foams. Materials, 10.
doi:10.3390/ma12122017

Xu, H., Gong, L., Huang, S., & Xu, M. (2015). Flow and heat transfer characteristics
of nanofluid flowing through metal foams. International Journal of Heat and Mass
Transfer, 9. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2014.12.024
ThankYou .