Fluid Flow Characteristics for Partially-Confined Compact Plain-Plate-Fin Heat Sinks Available to Purchase

A series of experimental investigations with a stringent measurement method on the study of the fluid flow behavior for confined compact heat sinks in forced convection have been successfully conducted. In the present study, a theoretical model to effectively predict the velocity and pressure drop for partially-confined heat sinks has been successfully developed. The air velocities flowing into heat sink U_s through side bypass U₁ and top bypass U₂ for various 0.47<H/H_c<1 ratios are evaluated, where H/H_c is the ratio of the heat sink height to channel height. The maximum and average deviations of the velocities predicted by the present model from the experimental data are less than 20.31% and 13.13%, respectively, for confined compact heat sinks. Besides, the results show a good agreement between the predicted results and the experimental data of the pressure drop for the cases of H/H_c = 1. Nevertheless, the relative deviation of the predictions from the experimental data becomes more significant with decreasing H/H_c ratio, i.e., increasing the top bypass of confined compact heat sink. A new modified correlation of pressure drop including the H/H_c effect is presented. The maximum and average deviations of the results predicted by the new correlation from the experimental data are 14.48% and 7.72%, respectively.