Thermal Management of Time-Varying High Heat Flux Electronic Devices

The thermal characteristics of a laboratory pin-fin microchannel heat sink were empirically obtained for heat flux, q″, in the range of 30–170 W/cm², mass flux, m, in the range of 230–380 kg/m² s, and an exit vapor quality, x_out, from 0.2 to 0.75. Refrigerant R 134a (HFC-134a) was chosen as the working fluid. The heat sink was a pin-fin microchannel module installed in open flow loop. Deviation from the measured average temperatures was 1.5 °C at q = 30 W/cm², and 2.0 °C at q = 170 W/cm². These results indicate that use of pin-fin microchannel heat sink enables keeping an electronic device near uniform temperature under steady state and transient conditions. The heat transfer coefficient varied significantly with refrigerant quality and showed a peak at an exit vapor quality of 0.55 in all the experiments. At relatively low heat fluxes and vapor qualities, the heat transfer coefficient increased with vapor quality. At high heat fluxes and vapor qualities, the heat transfer coefficient decreased with vapor quality. A noteworthy feature of the present data is the larger magnitude of the transient heat transfer coefficients compared to values obtained under steady state conditions. The results of transient boiling were compared with those for steady state conditions. In contrast to the more common techniques, the low cost technique, based on open flow loop was developed to promote cooling using micropin fin sinks. Results of this experimental study may be used for designing the cooling high power laser and rocket-born electronic devices.