Dissipating the heat generated in high-performance electronics using graphitic foam heat-sinks cooled with a dielectric liquid

Abstract

Abstract Due to their unique heat transfer features, graphitic foams have been used in the current analysis to form heat sinks effective enough to dissipate extreme heat generated within high-performance electronics. The heat sinks suggested are formed from foamed-baffles arranged in-parallel or perpendicularly to the coolant paths via the staggered voids in between to alleviate the penalty of pressure drop while maintaining high heat dissipation capability. Dielectric liquid, developed for direct electronics cooling, has been utilised as a coolant to sweep away the too high heat density generated within high-performance electronics. The feasibility of the currently suggested thermal management technique has been numerically inspected following the volume-averaging approach of porous media considering a local thermal non-equilibrium to prevail between the solid foam and liquid coolant flowing through. Based on the SIMPLE algorithm, the iterative solution has been implemented using the STAR-CCM+ CFD commercial code for a wide range of operating and design conditions. The design parameters tested are the height of foam baffles and how they are orientated towards the mainstream besides the structural specifications of the graphitic foam employed, while the operating conditions examined are the coolant flowrate along with the heat density applied. It has been found that the heat sinks proposed is effective enough to fulfil the extreme thermal requirements in high performance electronics and capable to dissipate the heat generated there with affordable pressure losses, where proper selection of design parameters in light of the operating conditions applied can prevent the emergence of hot spots entirely.