[Laad* et al., 5.

(6): June, 2016] ISSN: 2277-9655

IC™ Value: 3.00 Impact Factor: 4.116

IJESRT
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING SCIENCES & RESEARCH
TECHNOLOGY
THERMAL ANALYSIS OF HEAT SINK WITH FINS OF DIFFERENT
CONFIGURATION USING ANSYS WORKBENCH 14.0
Piyush Laad*, Bhushan Akhare, Praveen Chaurasia
*
Mechanical Engineering, IET DAVV Indore, India

DOI:
ABSTRACT
The effect of the pin-fin shapes on the overall performance of the heat sink with inline and staggered arrangement is
studied in this paper. Six different shapes of fins rectangle, trapezoidal, rectangular interrupted, square, circular
inline and staggered are subjected to study in this paper.
The optimization processes are carried out using computer simulations performed using Ansys workbench 14.0.
TheHeat transfer taken in natural air and aluminum 6063 as a pin fin material. To study of thermal performance of
different heat sink of the different fin profile at different velocities 5, 10 & 12 m/s and simulation is done at different
heat load of 15W, 20W & 25 W and air inlet temperature is taken as 295 K. The purpose of this study is to examine
the effects of the configurations of the different pin-fins design.
It is observed from the results that optimum cooling is achieved by the heat sink design which contains Circular pin
fins.
After the selection of proper heat sink by CFD simulations the steady state thermal performance is carried out at
different fin height of circular pin fin heat sink. The result shows that the temperature is increasing by decreasing the
fin height.
At different loads the performance of all selected fin profiles is carried out and found that at & 25 W load the
maximum temperature is maximum for interrupted rectangular fin and minimum for circular pin fin. And the value
of Nusslet number is also maximum for circular pin fin design.

KEYWORDS: Heat Sink, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Natural convection, Thermal resistance, Surface
Nusselt number, Pressure drop, Heat transfer coefficient.

INTRODUCTION
Heat sink is an electronic component or a device of an electronic circuit which disperses heat from other
components (mainly from the power transistors) of a circuit into the surrounding medium and cools them for
improving their performance, reliability and also avoids the premature failure of the components. For the cooling
purpose, it incorporates a fan or cooling device.[10]
Extended surfaces or fins are commonly found on electronic components ranging from power supplies to
transformers. The dissipation and subsequent rejection of potentially destructive self-produced heat is an important
aspect of electronic equipment design. The dissipation of heat is necessary for its proper function. The heat is
generated by the resistance encountered by electric current. Unless proper cooling arrangement is designed, the
operating temperature exceeds permissible limit. As a consequence, chances of failure get increased. [3]

APPLICATIONS
Heat sinks are widely used in various industrial applications to cool electronic, power electronic,
telecommunications, and automotive components. Those components might be either high-power semiconductor
devices, audio amplifiers, microcontrollers and microprocessors. More precisely, the passive cooling heat sinks are
widely used in CPU cooling, audio amplifiers and power LED cooling.
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OBJECTIVE OF WORK
• To design & optimize the heat sink of the different fin profile for given heat input 15W.
• To predict velocity, Pressure and temperature profiles for heat input applied on the base of the heat sink.
• To predict the optimum value for fin width, fin spacing, no. of fins & fin height, in fin arrays for maximum
heat transfer rate and minimum temperature distribution.

PREPARATION OF THE CAD MODEL

The designs of heat Sink with rectangular fins, Trapezoidal fins, Interrupted Fins, Square pin fin, Circular Pin Fins
with inline Staggered arrangements is done in Auto CAD 2012 in IGES format. A flat platform of 150 X 150 X 2.5
mm [9] is common in all designs. Trapezoidal shape fins is made with a draft angle of 1° on either side. Fin height for
all models is 50mm. The fin hight is decreasing from 50mm to 10 mmThe important geometric variables considered
are Fin width, Fin spacing, no. of fins & fin height, base thickness.

Fig. 1. Rectangular Plate Heat Sink

Fig. 2. Trapezoidal Heat Sink

Fig. 3. Rectangular Interrupted Heat Sink

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IC™ Value: 3.00 Impact Factor: 4.116

Fig. 4. Square Pin Fin Heat Sink

Fig. 5. Circular Staggered Heat Sink

Fig. 6. Circular Inline Heat Sink

Computational Model

Fig. 7. Meshing of Whole domain

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MATERIAL SELECTED FOR HEAT SINK
Aluminium alloy 6063 is a medium strength alloy commonly referred to as an architectural alloy. It is normally used
in intricate extrusions. It has a good surface finish, high corrosion resistance, is readily suited to welding and can be
easily anodized. Provide good extrudability.

CFD MODELLING
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and algorithms to
solve and analyze problems that involve fluid flows.
Certain assumptions are made for the ease of solving the models and those assumptions are given below.
1) The fins are with adiabatic tip & the airflow is normal to the axis of fins.
2) The fluid, air is assumed to be incompressible throughout the process.
3) Air properties are taken at film temperature.
4) The flow is steady, laminar.
5) There are no heat sources within the fin itself.
6) The radiation heat transfer is negligible.
7) The temperature at the base of the fin is uniform.

MESHING OF THE DOMAIN [12]

The second part of pre-processing is the mesh generation. After the model is imported to Ansys workbench it is then
launched in the meshing module for the mesh generation Coarse, medium, and fine mesh types are available. In our
problem CFD Tetrahedral mesher is used.

BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
• In this analysis the blocks are modeled and only heat sink is modeled as solid domain with heat source of
15W. In this case heat sink material considered as aluminum 6063. The analysis is done at atmospheric
temperature of 295K.
Boundary conditions [10] are entered as follows:
• Base plate: - Heat Load of 15W & Aluminium alloy properties are assigned.
• Base top(wall): Base top is receiving heat from the chip, so heat flux is applied on the base top
• Fin bottom, Front face, Left, Right, Rear face (Walls): Heat transfer to surrounding atmosphere by
convection. Inlet (velocity inlet): Air enters into the Heat sink with 5, 10 & 12m/s [11] in given direction
according to the geometry.
• Outlet (Pressure Outlet): After passing through the heat sink air enters into atmosphere, so at outlet
atmospheric pressure is assumed.
• After applying the above boundary conditions. Simulation is performed under steady state conditions till
the convergence is reached.

MATERIAL PROPERTIES
Properties Air Aluminium Alloy 6063

Density (kg/m3) 1.1965 2719

Sp. Heat (Cp) (J/kgK) 1006.43 871

Thermal Conductivity
0.026 202.4
(W/mK)

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RESULT & DISCUSSIONS

Fig. 8. Contour of minimum temperature distribution in Rectangular heat sink at 12 m/s velocity

Fig. 9. Contour of minimum pressure distribution in Rectangular heat sink at 5 m/s velocity

Fig. 10. Contour of minimum temperature distribution in Trapezoidal heat sink at 12 m/s velocity

Fig. 11. Contour of minimum pressure distribution in Trapezoidal heat sink at 5 m/s velocity

Fig. 12. Contour of minimum temperature distribution in Interrupted rectangular heat sink with 12 m/s velocity

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Fig. 13. Contour of minimum pressure distribution in Interrupted Rectangular heat sink at 5 m/s velocity

Fig. 14. Contour of minimum temperature distribution in Square pin fin heat sink at 12 m/s velocity

Fig. 15. Contour of minimum pressure distribution in Square pin fin heat sink at 5 m/s velocity

Fig. 16. Contour of minimum temperature distributio in Circular heat sink at 12 m/s velocity

Fig. 17. Contour of minimum Pressure distribution in Circular pin fin heat sink at 5 m/s velocity
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Fig. 18. Contour of minimum temperature distribution in Circular staggered heat sink at 12 m/s velocity

Fig. 19. Contour of minimum Pressure distribution in Circular Staggered pin fin heat sink at 5 m/s velocity

Fig. 20. Contour of Maximum Surface Nusselt Number in Circular Heat Sink at 12m/s velocity
Case Fin Width No. of Velocit Base Rth Pressure
Nu
No. (mm) Fins y (m/s) Temperature (K) (K/W) Drop Pa
1 2.5 15 5 347.7 3.52 629 27
2 2.5 15 10 345 3.32 654 111
3 2.5 15 12 343.9 3.26 661 148
4 3.5 14 5 342.8 3.19 1099 44
5 3.5 14 10 341.6 3.11 1157 172
6 3.5 14 12 341.4 3.1 1168 245
7 3.5 70 5 348.7 3.6 939 51
8 3.5 70 10 345 3.35 971 204
9 3.5 70 12 344.2 3.3 979 293
10 8 49 5 342.2 3.15 759 65
11 8 49 10 339.9 3 779 260
12 8 49 12 339.8 2.99 782 375
13 7 36 5 323.4 1.9 2005 78
14 7 36 10 319.2 1.62 2204 314
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15 7 36 12 318.4 1.57 2242 454
16 7 46 5 329.5 2.3 1964 91
17 7 46 10 326.5 2.1 2009 368
18 7 46 12 326 2.06 2137 531
Table 1. Variation in Computation Result of Different pin fin profiles at velocity 5, 10 & 12 m/s
As it is clear from above table that the Circular pin fin heat sink has better performance than the other heat sink
profiles. Represent in the table that case no. 15 has maximum Nusselt number of 2242 and minimum thermal
resistance of 1.57 which is very low as compare to other profiles and geometries.

THERMAL ANALYSIS
After the selection of proper heat sink the steady state thermal performance is carried out at different fin height of
selected circular pin fin heat sink. The result shows that the temperature is increasing by decreasing the fin height.

Fig. 21. Thermal analysis of selected circular pin fin heat sink at 50 mm height.

Fig. 22. Thermal analysis of selected circular pin fin heat sink at 40 mm height.

Fig. 23. Thermal analysis of selected circular pin fin heat sink at 30 mm height.

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Fig. 24. Thermal analysis of selected circular pin fin heat sink at 20 mm height

Fig. 25. Thermal analysis of selected circular pin fin heat sink at 10 mm height.

Maximum Minimum
Fin No. of Fin Height
Case No. Fin Spacing
Diameter Fins Temperature Temperature

1 7 18 36 50 30.6 26.41

2 7 18 36 45 30.971 27

3 7 18 36 40 31.406 27.844

4 7 18 36 35 32 28.829

5 7 18 36 30 32.904 30.113

6 7 18 36 25 34.257 31.888

7 7 18 36 20 36.508 34.557

8 7 18 36 15 40.733 39.22

9 7 18 36 10 50.959 49.875

Table 2. Maximum temperature of selected circular fin profile at different fin height.

Table 2. Represent the variation of temperature and Nusselt Number of selected different fin profile at different loads.
As represented in the table no. 2 that the value of maximum temperature obtained is different for all heat sink
profiles. It shows that at & 25 W load the maximum temperature is maximum for interrupted rectangular fin and
minimum for circular pin fin. And the value of Nusslet number is also maximum for circular pin fin design.

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IC™ Value: 3.00 Impact Factor: 4.116
PERFORMANCE AT DIFFERENT HEAT LOADS
We have selected the circular pin fin profile for the heat sink at 15 W heat load as represented in the table number 1.
But if the heat input is increased, the maximum temperature obtained is different for all heat sink profiles.

Fin width/ Fin Fin

No. of Weight Fin Area
SNo. Fin profile Diameter spacing Volume
Fins (kg) Afin (mm2)
(mm) (mm) (mm3)
1 Rectangular 3.5 7 15 393750 1.07 230000

2 Trapezoidal 3.5 7.634 14 275373 0.901 212450

Interrupted
3 7 22 70 269500 0.885 178500
Rectangular
4 Square 8 13 49 156800 0.579 78400

5 Circular Inline 7 18 36 69272 0.34 40000

Circular
6 7 43 46 88514 0.393 52300
Staggered
Table 3. Represent the total volume, weight and fin area of different fin profiles heat sink

Maximum Nusselt Number

Profile Heat Load (W)
Temperature (K) (Nu)

15 343.914 661
Rectangular 20 360.285 690
25 376.606 708
15 341.447 1167.5
Trapezoidal 20 356.992 1264.5
25 372.49 1331
15 344.239 978.52
Interrupted Rectangular 20 360.72 1063.6
25 377.151 1119
15 339.758 782.46
Square 20 354.736 828
25 370 860
15 318.447 2242
Circular 20 326.304 2608
25 334 2892
15 325.984 2137
Circular Staggered 20 336.344 2468
25 346.6 2720

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Figure 24 Represent the decrease in temperature of selected Circular heat sink configuration with respect to fin height.

It represent in the table that after selection of proper heat sink configuration from different profiles as result is
mentioned in the Table 3. The volume and weight of selected heat sink is calculated and found that the Circular
inline pin fin has lowest volume and weight than the other selected heat sink gives better thermal performance and
reduction in cost due to reduction in material.

CONCLUSIONS
The overall performance of the six different profile heat sinks was studied in this paper for different velocities
varying from 5, 10 & 12 m/s. The paper presents computer simulation and thermal analysis of different shape fins
heat sink for an electronic system cooled by natural convection.
From computational result it is clear that circular pin fin with 7 mm fin dimeter, 36 no. of fins and 18 mm fin
spacing has better performance than the other one and the maximum temperature obtained is 318 K ans maximum
Nusselt number is 2242 at 12 m/s.
The steady state thermal performance of selected circular pin fin design shows in the graph 4 that the maximum
temperature is increasing by decreasing fin height.
As represented in the table no. 5.9 that the value of maximum temperature obtained is different for all heat sink
profiles. It shows that at & 25 W load the maximum temperature is maximum for interrupted rectangular fin and
minimum for circular pin fin. And the value of Nusslet number is also maximum for circular pin fin design.
It represent that the total volume of selected fin profile from different configurations is minimum i. e. 69272.11 mm3
in case of circular pin fin design.

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