Experimental and numerical investigations of forced convection impingement heat transfer on plate-fin heat sinks using three different electronic cooling fans

An experimental and numerical study was conducted for plate-fin heat sinks subjected to impinging air jets produced by electronic cooling fans. One axial and two different radial fans were used and their distance to the heat sink was varied. The aluminum heat sinks had either plain fins or fins with sinusoidal surface structures, were heated by heat sources either distributed over the entire base plate or concentrated in the center. In total, temperature measurements for 264 settings were performed, and numerical simulations were carried out for 19 selected cases. The results show that the axial fan outperforms the radial fans for the investigated fan distances, that the structured fins lead to lower base plate temperatures and that significant asymmetries in the heat sink temperature distribution can occur in certain cases. The numerical simulations are used to gain a better understanding of the trends observed in the measurements. Particularly, the impact of the velocity profiles at the fan outlets and the influence of certain geometrical details of the fan design on the heat flux distributions and the airflow into the fin channels are explored. The results highlight practical problems that need to be considered when optimizing heat sink-fan combinations. • Thermal analysis of plain and structured plate-fin heat sinks under impingement flow. • Impingement flow using three different electronic cooling fans (radial and axial). • Measurements for varying fan distances and distributed/concentrated heating. • Influence of fan geometry and outlet flow field studied using numerical simulations. • Axial fan outperforms radial fans even for concentrated heating.