The thermal characteristics of exit flow issued from an axial fan widely used for impingement cooling of power electronics are experimentally studied. A new fan configuration is proposed to improve the impingement cooling performance at the center of a uniformly heated flat plate. Results demonstrate that the addition of fin attachments to the fan hub housing the driving motor intensifies reverse flow from the plate, leading to enhanced local heat transfer (up to 12%) relative to that of a reference fan. The effectiveness of hub fin attachments is limited to relatively short impinging distances (H/D<0.6).

1.
Saini
,
M.
, and
Webb
,
R.
, 2003, “
Heat Rejection Limits of Air Cooled Plane Fin Heat Sinks for Computer Cooling
,”
IEEE Trans. Compon. Packag. Technol.
1521-3331,
26
, pp.
71
79
.
2.
Chu
,
R. C.
,
Simons
,
R. E.
,
Ellsworth
,
M. J.
,
Schmidt
,
R. R.
, and
Cozzolino
,
V.
, 2004, “
Review of Cooling Technologies for Computer Products
,”
IEEE Trans. Device Mater. Reliab.
1530-4388,
4
, pp.
568
585
.
3.
El-Sheikh
,
H. A.
, and
Garimella
,
S. V.
, 2000, “
Enhancement of Air Jet Impingement Heat Transfer Using Pin-Fin Heat Sink
,”
IEEE Trans. Compon. Packag. Technol.
1521-3331,
23
, pp.
300
308
.
4.
Brignoni
,
L. A.
, and
Garimella
,
S. V.
, 1999, “
Experimental Optimization of Confined Air Jet Impingement on a Pin Fin Heat Sink
,”
IEEE Trans. Compon. Packag. Technol.
1521-3331,
22
, pp.
399
404
.
5.
Huang
,
L.
, and
El-Genk
,
M. S.
, 1998, “
Heat Transfer and Flow Visualization Experiments of Swirling, Multi-Channel, and Conventional Impinging Jets
,”
Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer
0017-9310,
41
, pp.
583
600
.
6.
Sui
,
D.
,
Wang
,
S. S.
,
Kim
,
T.
,
Mao
,
J. R.
, and
Lu
,
T. J.
, “
Exit Flow Structures of Axial Fan Flows With/Without Impingement
,”
ASME J. Fluids Eng.
0098-2202, in press.
7.
Sui
,
D.
,
Kim
,
T.
,
Xu
,
M. L.
, and
Lu
,
T. J.
, 2008, “
Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics of Impinging Axial Fan Flows on a Uniformly Heated Flat Plate
,”
Int. J. Transp. Phenom.
1028-6578,
10
, pp.
353
363
.
8.
Coleman
,
H. W.
, and
Steele
,
W. G.
, 1999,
Experimentation and Uncertainty Analysis for Engineers
, 2nd ed.,
Wiley
,
New York
.
You do not currently have access to this content.