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A master's thesis from Aalborg University
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Techno-economic analysis of a heat sink for micro chip cooling

Author

Term

4. term

Publication year

2019

Submitted on

Pages

71

Abstract

Effektiv varmeafledning er afgørende for, at elektroniske enheder fungerer stabilt. Når enheder bliver mindre og kraftigere, skal mere varme fjernes fra et mindre område. En mikrokanal-køleplade er en lille komponent med mange bittesmå kanaler, hvor en kølevæske løber og fører varmen væk. Dette studie præsenterer en teknoøkonomisk analyse, der sammenligner flere mikrokanal-køleplade-design for at finde det bedste kompromis mellem termisk ydeevne og indkøbspris. Vi simulerer designene med Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), under en ensartet varmebelastning og med fast pumpeeffekt, så indsatsen for at drive kølevæsken er den samme i alle tilfælde. Vi sammenligner den termiske modstand, et mål for hvor godt kølepladen leder varme til kølevæsken (lavere er bedre), og sætter den i relation til priser fra en eksempelproducent. Resultaterne viser, at flere kanaler reducerer den termiske modstand, men efter et vist punkt stiger prisen kraftigt, mens den ekstra kølegevinst er minimal. Det optimale design i dette studie har 50 kanaler og et kanal/fin-breddeforhold på 0,7 og giver effektiv varmeafledning til en rimelig pris.

Efficient heat removal is essential to keep electronic devices working reliably. As devices become smaller and more powerful, more heat must be carried away from a smaller area. A microchannel heat sink is a small component with many tiny channels that carry a cooling fluid to remove heat. This study presents a techno-economic analysis that compares several microchannel heat sink designs to identify the best balance between thermal performance and purchasing price. We simulate the designs using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with a uniform heat flux (even heat input across the surface) and a fixed pumping power (the same energy used to drive the coolant) for all cases. We compare thermal resistance, a measure of how well the heat sink conducts heat to the coolant where lower values are better, and relate it to prices from an example manufacturer. The results show that adding more channels lowers thermal resistance, but beyond a certain point the price rises sharply while the extra cooling benefit is minimal. The optimal design in this study has 50 channels and a channel-to-fin width ratio of 0.7, offering strong heat removal at a reasonable cost.

[This abstract was generated with the help of AI]