Twisted Offset Strip Fin Heat Sink For Power Electronics Cooling

Abstract

During the last decades, selective laser melting (SLM) using aluminum alloy AlSi10Mg powder has developed into one of the more popular metal-based additive manufacturing (AM) processes and has a promising potential in heat transfer applications. In this paper, the thermal and hydraulic performance of an AM AlSi10Mg twisted offset strip heat sink is numerically investigated. Firstly, a multi-objective genetic algorithm function (gamultiobj) was utilized to determine the optimal geometrical design of baseline straight offset strip heat sink based on the total thermal resistance and pumping power consumption under a constant flow rate of 0.3 LPM and constant heat flux 100 W/cm2 with water as a coolant fluid. A numerical model was subsequently developed to predict the performance of the novel twisted heat sink and compare it to the performance of a conventional offset strip heat sink. The numerical results of the baseline heat sink model were consistent with the literature’s correlations. The twisted heat sinks were simulated at different twisting angles ranges from 10 degrees to 120 degrees and demonstrate superior thermal performance to that of the baseline heat sink, however, with a penalty in hydraulic performance. The AM heat sink with 120 degrees twist angle outperformed the baseline version with a 14.75% decrease in the total thermal resistance, but with a pressure drop increase of 39%. The future direction of this research is also presented and discussed.