Open Access

ARTICLE

Numerical Study on Heat Transfer Characteristic of the Plate-Fin Microchannel Heat Sink for Water-Based Thermal Management of CPU Chip

Jie-Chao Chen, Rui-Hao Luo, Wu-Zhi Yuan, Nan-Long Hong^*, Wen-Hao Wang

Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Distributed Energy Systems, Guangdong Provincial Engineering Research Center of Distributed Energy Systems, Dongguan University of Technology, Dongguan, 523808, China

* Corresponding Author: Nan-Long Hong. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Advanced Heat Pump Technologies for Renewable Energy Utilization)

Energy Engineering 2022, 119(4), 1327-1339. https://doi.org/10.32604/ee.2022.019331

Received 17 September 2021; Accepted 16 November 2021; Issue published 23 May 2022

Abstract

For effective water-based thermal management of high heat generating CPU chip, a series of numerical simulation has been conducted to study the effects of heat flux, fin height and flow rate on convective thermal performance of the plate-fin microchannel heat sinks. The characteristics of heat transfer and flow resistance have been quantificationally discussed and JF factor is employed to evaluate the comprehensive efficiency of convective heat transfer of microchannel heat sink. Results show that the increase in fin height and flow rate of cooling water is helpful to decrease the maximum temperature of CPU chip. Large flow rate and heat flux and short fin height are benefit to improve Nusselt number Nu, but they lead to large resistance coefficient fRe simultaneously. Analysis of JF factor shows that the microchannel with short fins shows better convective thermal performance when the thermal power of the CPU chip is small. The fins should be heightened when the CPU is operating at higher thermal power. The employment of JF factor in the present work shows its pertinence and convenience in the application of design of microchannel heat sink.

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