Analysis of Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer in Corrugated Porous Fin Heat Sinks

Abstract

This study reports on a mathematical model for predicting the fluid and heat flow characteristics of a Z-shaped corrugated foam heat sink. Experiments were carried out to validate local as well as overall pressure drop predictions. The mathematical model was further validated against corrugated carbon foam experimental measurements from the literature. A general flow parameter emerges from the formulation that is descriptive of flow uniformity. Based on a scaling analysis, it was found that a relatively low permeability foam, compared to the square of the conduit hydraulic diameter, is more effective than high permeability foam because of its ability to achieve uniform flow distribution. An illustrative study is carried that estimates the optimum number of porous fins that can be packaged within a given volume under fixed pressure drop constraint. Further, this study elaborates on the importance of achieving uniform flow distribution across the porous fins. The ideal condition of uniform flow was found to be useful in increasing the rate of heat transfer when compared with the actual condition of non-uniform flow for the range of parameters explored in this work. Finally, the impact of the flow non-uniformity parameter on the overall Nusselt number is illustrated.

Acknowledgments

Authors wish to thank Mr. Tapan R. Dave for his help in formulating MATLAB code.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India, under Grant DST/TSG/AMT/2015/620.

Notes on contributors

Shripad A. Upalkar

Shripad A. Upalkar is a Mechanical Engineer pursuing his Ph. D. with a specialization in Thermal Engineering, and his primary research interests are in the areas of heat transfer enhancement, fluid flow analysis, and transport in porous media for thermal management. His work focuses on developing analytical solutions and validation of novel periodic cellular materials/foam-based heat sinks and heat exchangers.

Sanjeet Kumar

Sanjeet Kumar is a Ph.D. candidate of the mechanical engineering department working on solar-driven non-conventional thermal desalination technology. His work focuses on developing energy and exergy efficient humidification dehumidification desalination technology

Shankar Krishnan

Shankar Krishnan is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He was a Staff Thermal Engineer and Thermal Team Lead for High-Performance Computing Product Engineering team within the Datacenter Group at the Intel Corporation. Prior to that, he was employed at Bell Labs – Alcatel-Lucent as a Post-Doctoral Member of Staff and as a Staff Engineer/Scientist at Battelle/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory. He received his B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from PSG College of Technology, India in 2000. He received his MSME in 2002 and Ph.D. in 2006 from the School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University. His work has received, among other awards, the 2014 R&D 100 award and President of India cash prize award – 1998. His research and teaching interests lie in the fields of heat transfer, thermal transport phenomena in porous and microporous materials, compact high-performance cooling technologies, and nontraditional thermal desalination methods. He has more than 75 technical publications and 21 patents either granted or filed to his credit.