Nonlocal Modeling and Swarm-Based Design of Heat Sinks

Abstract

Cooling electronic chips to satisfy the ever-increasing heat transfer demands of the electronics industry is a perpetual challenge. One approach to addressing this is through improving the heat rejection ability of air-cooled heat sinks, and nonlocal thermal-fluid-solid modeling based on Volume Averaging Thoery (VAT) has allowed for significant strides in this effort. A number of optimization methods for heat sink designers who model heat sinks with VAT can be envisioned due to VAT's singular ability to rapidly provide solutions, when compared to Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)approaches. The Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) method appears to be an attractive multiparameter heat transfer device optimization tool, however it has received very little attention in this field compared to its older population-based optimizer cousin, the Genetic Algorithm (GA).The PSO method is employed here to optimize smooth and scale-roughened straight-fin heat sinks modeled with VAT by minimizing heat sink thermal resistance for a specified pumping power. Optimal designs are obtained with the PSO method for both types of heat sinks, the performances of the heat sink types are compared, and the performance of the PSO method is discussed with reference to the GA method. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of combining a VAT-based nonlocal thermal-fluid-solid model with population-based optimization methods, such as PSO, to design heat sinks for electronics cooling applications.Nonlocal Modeling and Swarm-Based Design of Heat Sinks 2Geb, HT-xx-xxxx

Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop Characteristics of Finned Metal Foam Heat Sinks Under Uniform Impinging Flow

“…Although various advanced cooling systems have been suggested (e.g., thermoelectric cooling, liquid cooling, two-phase cooling, etc.) [2][3][4], the solution with air-cooled heat sinks is preferred because of its reliability and cost-effectiveness [5]. To enhance the rate of heat dissipation from an air-cooled heat sink, the simple approach is to increase heat sink size or the air flow rate.…”