Comparing the Performance of a Straight-Channel Heat Sink with Different Channel Heights: An Experimental and Numerical Study

Straight-channel heat sinks are widely used as a cooling method for electronic devices and lithium battery thermal management. This study aims to enhance the thermal performance of a straight-channel heat sink while decreasing the pressure drop. In this design, the height of inside channels is reduced to provide open space above the channel while the size of the heat sink remains constant. Both experimental investigation and numerical analysis were conducted to study the thermal efficiency of heat sinks with varying heights, at flow rates ranging from 6.94 to 19.56 m3/s and heat fluxes between 3.8 and 7.43 W/cm2. The comparison is carried out between channels with four different heights in terms of temperature distribution, local Nusselt number, velocity, and flow characteristic. The results indicate that lowering the height of the channel from 12.7 to 7 and 4 mm raises the highest temperature of the heat sink, whereas the change in height to 10 mm reduces the temperature. Furthermore, increasing the flow rate has a higher impact on improving the Nusselt number in channels with a height of 10 mm. When the height is decreased from 12.7 to 10 mm, the performance evaluation criterion is obtained higher than one for all flow rates.