Method of Heat Sinks Testing Based on Cooling Curves

A heat sink is a cooling device that transfers the dissipated heat away from electronics to the surroundings. The testing method presented in the paper applies the nonequilibrium thermodynamic analysis of heat sink cooling curves. Here, the heat sink temperature time course is measured by using a thermal imager. The used thermal imager Flir T-640 takes single shots with recording of images. The proposed method validation test was performed on a selected heat sink. By analyzing the heat sink cooling curves, it is possible to obtain courses of the heat power and the heat sink surface to ambient thermal resistance. The presented testing method also enables a thermal analysis to distinguish between the convective and radiative components of heat transfer.