Comparison of heat sink’s fin-spacing using CuO–H2O-based nanofluids for high heat generating microprocessor: an experimental study

Abstract

Technological advancement in previous years has resulted in decrease in the size of microprocessors and thus, high heat generation. To address this problem, experiments were carried out to optimize the performance of nanofluid-cooled heat sinks at a power of 300 W for better thermal management. The optimization process involved varying both the concentration of the coolant (and by extension, its thermo-physical properties) and the fin spacing of the heat sink (to modify the convective and conductive heat transfer area) to achieve the lowest thermal resistance at different flow rates. Instead of an actual microprocessor, a copper block heated by a mica insulated clamp heater (rated at 285 W) was used to simulate the microprocessor. The evaluation of the heat sink performance was also based on the lowest base temperature achieved, the total heat rejected and the overall heat transfer coefficients for all iterations.

Keywords

• Nanofluid
• optimization
• heat sinks
• thermal resistance
• overall heat transfer coefficient