Cooling performance of triangular folded fin heat sinks in a duct flow

Abstract

Experiments have been performed to investigate the cooling performance of triangular folded-fin heat sinks made of aluminum in a duct flow. The dimension of the triangular folded fin heat sink is 70 mm in width and 92 mm in length with a 10 mm thick base plate. The fin height is varied from 19 mm to 36 mm and the fin pitch from 4 mm to 8 mm. The duct air velocity is in the range of 0.7-5 m/s and the corresponding Reynolds number based on the hydraulic diameter is varied from 159 to 2280. The cooling performance of triangular folded fin heat sink is expressed in terms of the averaged Nusselt number and thermal resistance. The experimental results show that the present triangular folded-fin heat sinks exhibit higher cooling performance compared to a conventional extruded plate-fin heat sink with the same fin height. The cooling performance of triangular folded-fin heat sink is significantly influenced by the fin height, the fin pitch and the Reynolds number. By compiling the experimental data, a heat transfer correlation is provided for effective design of triangular folded fin heat sinks.