Design Analysis of a 3-D, Ultra-High Performance, Scalable, Micro Convective Heat Sink With NPCM

The paper proposes a new design of a scalable, heat sink containing 3-D micro/nano network, utilizing liquid mixed with nano phase change materials (NPCM) and having a high surface-to-volume ratio geometry. The conceptual design is capable of reaching 10⁵ W/cm³ using encapsulated nano-size phase change materials, which would result in an order of magnitude higher cooling capacity than typical microchannel heat sink of the same volume and same pumping power. It is also scalable to submicron range, resulting even higher cooling capacity. An analysis for a working model (10 × 10 × 1 mm) is presented utilizing energy conservation principle and uniform temperature and uniform heat flux boundary conditions. The average phase change heat transfer coefficient is obtained using the numerical model results. A process of micro electrochemical deposition to fabricate the target model is illustrated, and the issues associated with system-level applications are discussed.