This article presents a conceptual design of a heat sink combining a porous medium whose matrix is highly conductive and a fin. A simplified model is presented to estimate the performance of the system, relying on Darcy law and local thermal equilibrium. The objective is to minimize the hot-spot temperature under global mass constraint by using an optimization procedure based on genetic algorithms. The design variables are the porosity and material of each layer of the porous medium, the fin material, height, and width, the aspect ratio of the heat sink, and the shape of a weightless upper corner deflector which reduces the width of the inlet and outlet air slots while removing the less useful mass. Results show that the optimal porous layers were generally of copper, independent of the mass constraint. However, the fin is mostly beneficial for heavier designs, while the deflector becomes more important when lightness is required. These two special features show their efficiency by allowing a mass reduction of 95% with a decrease of only 24% in the cooling performance.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.