Forced Convective Heat Transfer for Partially-Confined Compact PPF Heat Sinks With Top-Bypass Effect

A series of experimental investigations with a stringent measurement method on the study of the fluid flow and heat transfer for confined compact heat sinks in forced convection have been successfully conducted. From the results, the thermal capacity of the heat sink and the convective heat dissipation play the major roles for dominating the transient thermal behavior in the beginning of power-on transient period; while, the convective heat dissipation finally becomes the solely dominating term at the end of power-on transient period. The transient/steady-state local and average Nusselt numbers increase with increasing Grs, H/Hc ratio or Re. As compared with the steady-state average Nusselt number for non-compact heat sink (Fin-Al/ Base-Al), the steady-state heat transfer enhancement for compact heat sinks (Fin-Al/Base-Al) is 185.74%. Furthermore, a new correlation of steady-state average Nusselt number in terms of relevant influencing parameters for confined compact PPF heat sinks in forced convection is proposed. As compared with two existing correlations of steady-state average Nusselt numbers for unconfined and confined non-compact PPF heat sinks, the heat transfer enhancements for the present confined compact PPF heat sinks of H/Hc = 0.47 are 423.29% and 219.93%, respectively.