Comparative studies on performance of plain, perforated, threaded, and threaded–perforated pin fin: A numerical approach

Abstract

A heat sink is a thermal management system for electrical and electronic appliances whose performance is a function of fin geometry, arrangement, and flow field. Earlier research addressed the enhancement in the heat dissipation capacity of the sink with a change in the geometry of the fin. However, the change should increase the heat transfer rate per unit weight and per unit volume. One such attempt is made in the present work, which deals with numerical forced convection heat transfer simulation over a pin fin with three different surface modifications, namely, threads, equilateral triangular perforation, and threads with perforations. A numerical investigation is performed for 0.5773–2.5574 mm pitch of threads, 3–4.8 mm size of perforation, and 2–8 m/s velocities of air. To describe the flow pattern around the fin and its variation with surface modification, streamline profiles are drawn which reveals that the fluid–solid interaction is improved either with threaded or perforated surface and is maximum for threaded–perforated fin. The enhanced convection rates bring down the local fin temperature and the maximum fin temperature, where the drop is more for the threaded surface than that of the perforated surface because of turbulence. A 10° drop in maximum fin temperature is achieved by replacing a plain pin fin with a threaded–perforated pin fin, and the drop is 8° with threads alone and 6° only with perforations. The increased fineness of threads and size of perforation further bring down the maximum fin temperature.