Thermal analysis and optimization of L-shape fin heat sink under natural convection using ANOVA and Taguchi

Abstract

Advancement in electronic systems resulted in miniaturization and high-power densities. Therefore, the rate of heat generation in circuit board increased dramatically. To overcome the problem of overheating, numerous heat sink designs are proposed including L-shape fins heat sink. The thermo-fluidic flow behavior and temperature difference are analyzed to get better understanding of heat transfer from the sink to ambient air. Governing equations for the model of conjugate heat transfer in 3-D environment are solved and discretized across the computational domain. Numerous experiments are carried out to validate the numerical results. The effect of fin numbers, height, and heat sink size at three different input power is reported. Furthermore, ANOVA and Taguchi statistical methods are used to predict parameters that affect the heat transfer. The study revealed that fin height affects the heat transfer rate the most, and accounts for 25.3% increase in heat transfer rate. Optimization of the heat sink is carried out to ensure better efficiency of the proposed heat sink. The optimized conditions for the sink are observed to be heat sink size of 90 mm, 9 number of fins, and 33 mm of fin height.