International Journal of Thermal Sciences 126 (2018) 272–280

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International Journal of Thermal Sciences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijts

Prediction methods for natural convection around hollow hybrid fin heat T

sinks
Nico Setiawan Effendi, Severianus S.G. R. Putra, Kyoung Joon Kim∗
Department of Mechanical Design Engineering, Pukyong National University, Busan 48547, South Korea

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This study investigates prediction methods for natural convection around hollow hybrid fin heat sinks (HHFHSs).
Heat sink The HHFHS is the staggered array of hollow pin fins concatenated with radially-placed plate fins. 3-D compu-
Hollow hybrid fin tational thermal models have been generated using a commercial CFD software package and used to develop
Natural convection correlations to predict Nusselt numbers around HHFHSs. Nearly hundred cases under various parametric con-
Correlation
ditions have been calculated to obtain a broad range of thermal data. Correlations for Nusselt numbers have been
Nusselt number
obtained by considering their dependence on Rayleigh number, internal and external diameters, and fin height.
The correlations are seen to reasonably agree with the numerical results despite the complicated parametric
dependence of the HHFHS. Crucial parametric dependence of the HHFHS has been also explored using the
correlation.

1. Introduction the horizontal spacing as a characteristic length. Sahray et al. [13,14]

Heat sinks have been extensively used for the robust thermal
management of electronic and photonic systems due to their simplicity
and cost-effectiveness. Especially, passively-cooled heat sinks are more
effective for the systems remotely located or requiring high energy ef-
ficiency such as LED luminaires [1,2]. Despite such popularity, the
weight of the heat sink considerably affects the material cost, the en-
ergy efficiency, and the structural stability in the system level [3–5].
Consequently, the optimization for the light weight is necessary to
develop energy efficient and cost-effective heat sinks for natural con-
vection cooling applications.
Many researchers have rigorously contributed for the development
of advanced fin-structured heat sinks in natural convection. Recent
investigations are conducted into a polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) pin fin
heat sink by Bar-Cohen et al. [3,4], lightweight heat sinks based on
polymer composites by Mehmet et al. [5], heat sinks with hollow and
perforated pin fins by Elshafei [6], heat sinks with various fin cross
sections by Kou et al. [7], vertical cylinder heat sinks containing
longitudinal fins by Sun et al. [8], a horizontal cylinder with long-
itudinal fins by Haldar et al. [9], vertically-mounted rectangular in-
terrupted fins by Bahrami et al. [10], and horizontal rectangular fin
arrays with perforations in fin base by Wong et al. [11]. Especially,
rigorous researches have been recently conducted on the optimization
of pin fin heat sinks. Aihara et al. [12] investigated the sideward-facing
pin fin heat sink and formulated a Nusselt number correlation based on
studied upward-facing square pin fin heat sinks. A Nusselt number
correlation which depends on the fin height and spacing was presented.
Kim et al. [15] developed a correlation to optimize sideward-facing pin
fin heat sinks. Bar-Cohen et al. [3] optimized a polyphenylene sulfide
(PPS) pin fin heat sink using least-material optimization method. Lee
et al. [16] investigated an optimization of pin fin radial heat sinks.
In preceding studies, heat sinks with innovative fin structures were
introduced for light weight natural convection cooling [17,18]. A pe-
netrated hybrid fin heat sink (PHFHS) for cooling LED street lights
under natural and forced convections was proposed and compared with
pin fin heat sinks [17,18]. Despite its promising performance, the
complexity of the fin structure might cause higher manufacturing cost.
Hence, simpler fin structures were introduced and their thermal per-
formances were computationally investigated [19]. Hollow hybrid fin
heat sinks (HHFHSs) based on the simpler fin structure was studied. It
was found that the mass-based thermal performance of the HHFHS
might be superior to the classical pin fin heat sink (PFHS) [20,21].
Despite the demonstrated feasibility of the HHFHS, the optimization
methodology should be obtained to understand its optimum perfor-
mance. It is expected that the correlation-based optimization would be
effective and concrete. Hence, this study develops an effective corre-
lation for general representation of the natural convection around the
HHFHS.
This paper introduces the physical structure of the HHFHS and then
reports the CFD models of the HHFHSs for 36 configurations to obtain

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: kjkim@pknu.ac.kr (K.J. Kim).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijthermalsci.2018.01.002
Received 24 July 2017; Received in revised form 4 January 2018; Accepted 4 January 2018
1290-0729/ © 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
N.S. Effendi et al. International Journal of Thermal Sciences 126 (2018) 272–280

Nomenclature β volumetric thermal expansion coefficient [1/K]

η efficiency
D fin diameter [mm] ν kinematic viscosity [m2/s]
g gravity [m/s2] ρ density [kg/m3]
H fin height [mm]
hc convective heat transfer coefficient [W/m2-K] Subscripts
k thermal conductivity [W/m-K]
M heat sink mass [kg] f fin
N fin number i internal
Nu Nusselt number max maximum
P pressure [Pa] o external
Pr Prandtl number p perforation
Ra Rayleigh number s spacing
S fin spacing [mm] ∞ free stream
T temperature [°C]
ΔT temperature difference between the heat sink and the Superscripts
ambient [K]
u x – velocity [m/s] cor correlation
v y – velocity [m/s] mod modified
w z – velocity [m/s] num numerical

Greek symbols

α thermal diffusivity [m2/s]

broad thermal data needed for the development of a Nusselt number The continuity equation is expressed as
correlation. Then, the paper shows the experimental validation of the
CFD modelling methodology, representative thermal and flow fields of ∂u ∂v ∂w
+ + =0
the HHFHS, and the comparison of the thermal performance of the ∂x ∂y ∂z (1)
HHFHS with those of hollow and solid PFHSs. In the following section,
the paper discusses the development of the Nusselt number correlation Momentum equations are expressed as
using rigorous results for 108 calculation cases. Finally, the paper re-
ports parametric effects of the fin wall thickness and the fin height on
natural convection around the HHFHS.

2. Hollow hybrid fin heat sinks

The hollow hybrid fin heat sinks (HHFHSs) consist of hollow hybrid

fins (HHFs) in a staggered array. The HHF is a hollow pin fin with
radially-placed plate fins and a perforation near the fin base. The
configuration parameters of the HHFHS are shown in Fig. 1. H is the fin
height, Di is the internal fin diameter, Do is the external fin diameter, Dp
is the perforation diameter, W is the total width of the hybrid fin, and S
is the fin spacing, directly related with the fin number, N. Table 1
summarizes the values of H, Di, Do, Dp, W, S, and N used for the nu-
merical study. The heat sink base size is 75 mm × 75 mm x 5 mm. The
selected material for the heat sink is aluminum 6063.

3. Numerical modelling

3.1. CFD model

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis has been rigorously

conducted for 108 cases, which are 36 configurations shown in Table 1
at three base temperatures of 50, 70, and 90 °C, to obtain a broad range
of thermal data for the development of a Nusselt number correlation.
ANSYS ICEM CFD and FLUENT were used for the mesh generation
and the calculation, respectively. The numerical analysis assumed
steady and incompressible flow and boussinesq approximation for the
density model. The milestone of the numerical analysis is to generate
purely convection heat transfer data around the HHFHSs, and thus
thermal radiation was excluded.
Governing equations for the computations are shown in Eqns.
Fig. 1. The structure of a HHFHS.
(1)–(6) [22,23] as follows.

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Table 1 Table 2
Summary of HHFHS configurations. Summary of numerical conditions.

Type H(mm) Do(mm) Di(mm) Dp (mm) W(mm) N S(mm) Physical conditions

Fluid Steady and incompressible air
1 20 4 3 1.5 8 8 12.5 Fluid volume (LxWxH) 200 × 200 × 300 mm
2 20 4 3 1.5 8 23 7.5 Heat sink material Aluminum 6063
3 20 4 3 1.5 8 46 5 Boundary and thermal conditions
4 20 4 1 1.5 8 8 12.5 Air temperature 25° C
5 20 4 1 1.5 8 23 7.5 Inlet Pressure 1 atm
6 20 4 1 1.5 8 46 5 Outlet Pressure 1 atm
7 20 20 19 6 24 5 20 Heat sink base temperature 50, 70, 90 °C
8 20 20 19 6 24 8 12.5 Computational elements
9 20 20 1 6 24 5 20 Number of elements 2–25 M elements
10 20 20 1 6 24 8 12.5 Element type Tetra
11 75 4 3 1.5 8 8 12.5 Solution models
12 75 4 3 1.5 8 23 7.5 Viscous model Laminar
13 75 4 3 1.5 8 46 5 Solver type Pressure based
14 75 4 1 1.5 8 8 12.5 Pressure-velocity coupling SIMPLE
15 75 4 1 1.5 8 23 7.5 Density model Boussinesq approximation
16 75 4 1 1.5 8 46 5
17 75 20 19 6 24 5 20
18 75 20 19 6 24 8 12.5
Table 3
19 75 20 1 6 24 5 20
Domain and grid independence.
20 75 20 1 6 24 8 12.5
21 200 4 3 1.5 8 8 12.5
Domain influence
22 200 4 3 1.5 8 23 7.5
23 200 4 3 1.5 8 46 5
L × W × H (mm) Tb(oC) q(W) Rth(K/W)
24 200 4 1 1.5 8 8 12.5
150 × 150 × 150 70 13.79 3.26
25 200 4 1 1.5 8 23 7.5
200 × 200 × 200 70 13.75 3.27
26 200 4 1 1.5 8 46 5
(current)
27 200 10 9 3.5 14 6 10
250 × 250 × 300 70 13.78 3.27
28 200 10 9 3.5 14 23 7.5
350 × 350 × 500 70 13.77 3.27
29 200 10 1 3.5 14 6 10
30 200 10 1 3.5 14 23 7.5
Grid influence
31 200 20 19 6 24 5 20
32 200 20 19 6 24 8 12.5 Number of elements ( × 106) Tb(oC) q(W) Rth(K/W)
33 200 20 10 6 24 5 20 3.6 70 error error
34 200 20 10 6 24 8 12.5 5.3 70 13.74 3.28
35 200 20 1 6 24 5 20 6.3 70 13.75 3.27
36 200 20 1 6 24 8 12.5 (current)
9.8 70 13.73 3.28
11.8 70 13.76 3.27
∂u ∂u ∂u 1 ∂P ∂ 2u ∂ 2u ∂ 2u
u +v +w =− + ν⎛ 2 + 2 + 2 ⎞
⎜ ⎟
∂x ∂y ∂z ρ ∂x ⎝ ∂ x ∂ y ∂z ⎠ (2)
For the fluid region, the energy equation is expressed as
∂v ∂v ∂v 1 ∂P ∂ 2v ∂ 2v ∂ 2v
u +v +w =− + ν⎛ 2 + 2 + 2⎞
⎜ ⎟
∂x ∂y ∂z ρ ∂y ∂x ∂y ∂z ⎠ ∂T ∂v ∂T ∂ 2T ∂ 2T ∂ 2T ⎞
⎝ (3) u +v +w =α⎛ 2 + ⎜
2
+ ⎟
∂x ∂y ∂z ⎝ ∂ x ∂ y ∂z 2 ⎠ (5)
∂w ∂w ∂w 1 ∂P ∂ 2w ∂ 2w ∂ 2w
u +v +w =− + ν⎛ 2 + ⎜ + ⎞ + gβ (T − T∞) ⎟
∂x ∂y ∂z ρ ∂z ⎝ ∂x ∂y 2 ∂z 2 ⎠ For the solid region, the energy equation is expressed as
(4)

Fig. 2. The CFD model and boundary conditions of a HHFHS.

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Fig. 3. The schematic view of the test rig.

Table 4
Description of the test rig for validation.

Equipment
Data logger Agilent 34970A
DC power supply Agilent 6655A
DAQ PC Laptop computer Fig. 4. Numerically-evaluated thermal resistances of the heat sinks as a function of ex-
Components perimentally-determined thermal resistance.
Film heater: polyimide heater
(75 mm × 75 mm)
Temperature sensor T-type thermocouple pressure-velocity coupling was chosen. The body-force weighted was
Insulation layers applied for the pressure discretization. The momentum and energy
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) 100 × 100 × 10 mm
discretization was second-order upwind.
Glass wool 100 × 100 × 10 mm
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) 100 × 100 × 100 mm Table 3 summarizes representative results to show the in-
dependence of the numerical result on the fluid domain and the grid
size.
∂ 2T ∂ 2T ∂ 2T Table 3 shows the discrepancy no more than 0.3% for calculating
2
+ 2
+ =0
∂x ∂y ∂z 2 (6) the thermal resistance, Rth, and the discrepancy no more than 0.1% for
the total heat dissipation, q, of the HHFHS. Hence, the CFD model of the
where u, v, and w are velocities in x, y, and z directions, ρ is density, P is
HHFHS should be independent on the influence of the fluid domain and
pressure, ν is kinematic viscosity, g is gravity, β is volumetric thermal
the grid size.
constant, T is temperature, T∞ is the temperature of a free stream, and α
is thermal diffusivity.
Fig. 2 shows the CFD model of the HHFHS and its boundary con- 3.2. Validation
ditions. The CFD model uses up to 25 million computational elements.
The air region size and mesh independence have been carefully ex- The methodology of numerical modelling has been validated by
amined to ensure the robustness of the numerical results. Uniform base comparing numerical predictions with the measurements. The numer-
temperatures of 50, 70, and 90 °C were applied for each configuration ical and measurement results used for the validation are shown in
shown in Table 1. The ambient temperature of 25 °C was selected, all preceding reports [20,21]. The schematic view and the description of
the air surfaces are open to the ambient, and the aluminum 6063 was the test rig for the validation are shown in Fig. 3 and Table 4.
chosen as the heat sink material. A 75 × 75 mm polyimide film heater was used as a heat source. A
Table 2 summarizes numerical conditions of the CFD model such as 100 × 100 × 10 mm polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) plate, a 10 mm
physical conditions, boundary and thermal conditions, computational thick glass wool layer, and a 100 × 100 × 100 mm polyethylene ter-
elements, and solution models. The pressure-based solver with SIMPLE ephthalate (PET) block were used for the insulation. The test rig

Table 5
Uncertainty of the thermal resistance of the HS-1 and the HS-2.

Heat sink Power (W) Rth (K/W) Deviation ( ± K/W) Bias error ( ± K/W) Total uncertainty ( ± K/W) %
uncertainty

HS-1 5 2.96 0.0126 0.0938 0.0946 3.19

HS-1 10 2.60 0.0097 0.0449 0.0459 1.77
HS-1 15 2.42 0.0020 0.0285 0.0286 1.25
HS-1 20 2.31 0.0183 0.0204 0.0274 0.98
HS-1 25 2.23 0.0005 0.0155 0.0156 0.83
HS-1 30 2.16 0.0040 0.0123 0.0130 0.74
HS-2 5 3.24 0.0411 0.0922 0.1009 3.12
HS-2 10 3.00 0.0252 0.0440 0.0507 1.69
HS-2 15 2.80 0.0091 0.0278 0.0292 1.04
HS-2 20 2.73 0.0500 0.0196 0.0537 1.97
HS-2 25 2.63 0.0100 0.0147 0.0178 0.68
HS-2 30 2.57 0.0374 0.0116 0.0392 1.52

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Fig. 5. (a) Temperature and (b) air velocity fields around the HHFHSs (Types 6 and 12) at a base temperature of 90 °C.

Table 6 dissipations ranging from 5 to 30W. The comparison shows reasonably

The thermal performance of the HHFHS compared with hollow and solid PFHSs. small discrepancies, less than 10%, of the numerical thermal resistances
to the experimental thermal resistances. The discrepancy is mainly due
Heat sink Tb (oC) Rth (K/W) Rth·M (kg K/W) Nu
to the unavoidable heat loss through the insulation layers.
Type 2 HHFHS 70 8.12 0.70 1.24
Hollow PFHS 70 10.11 0.84 1.69
Solid PFHS 70 10.02 0.92 2.26 3.3. Thermal and flow fields

Type 12 HHFHS 70 3.27 0.38 1.08 This section discusses representative temperature and air velocity
Hollow PFHS 70 4.60 0.47 1.52
fields of the HHFHSs for Types 6 and 12, shown in Table 1, at a base
Solid PFHS 70 4.14 0.56 2.52
temperature of 90 °C. The temperature and air velocity fields are shown
Type 22 HHFHS 70 2.76 0.50 0.70 in Fig. 5(a) and (b). Fig. 5(a) shows the cooler edge of the HHFHS
Hollow PFHS 70 3.64 0.52 1.10 compared with the central region. Fig. 5(b) shows well-developed
Solid PFHS 70 2.73 0.63 2.16 symmetric air velocity profiles around the HHFHS and clear flows via
the internal channels for the Type 12. Such physically reasonable be-
haviors of thermal and flow fields, shown in Fig. 5(a) and (b), may
contains three T-type thermocouples to measure the heat sink base
support the robustness of the numerical methodology.
temperatures, a DC power supply (Agilent 6655A) to provide the film
heater with electrical current, a data logger (Agilent 34970A) to collect
the temperature data, and a data acquisition personal computer (DAQ 3.4. Comparison with hollow and solid PFHSs
PC) to monitor and store the temperature data.
Table 5 shows the uncertainty values of the measured thermal re- As aforementioned in the introduction section, the milestone of this
sistances of the two types of heat sinks (the HS-1 and the HS-2) for study is to develop the correlation for Nusselt numbers of the HHFHS. It
various heating powers ranging from 5 to 30 W [20,21]. The tem- is useful to compare the thermal performance of the HHFHS with
perature measurement and the heating power input are the dominant hollow and solid PFHSs for the correlation development. The hollow
sources of uncertainties in the validation measurement [24]. The T-type PFHS consists of the array of the hollow pin fins with perforations near
thermocouples typically have an accuracy of ± 0.5 °C, and the DC fin bases. The solid PFHS denotes a classical PFHS. The thermal per-
power supply has a power output error of 0.2%. The uncertainties have formances of the HHFHS, the hollow PFHS, and the solid PFHS were
been determined using the propagation of error method [25,26]. The numerically calculated for representative cases and summarized in
uncertainty analysis shows that the overall average uncertainty is Table 6. Rth and Rth M values show footprint-based and mass-based
within 3.2%. thermal performances of the heat sink, respectively, and Nu values
Fig. 4 shows the comparison between numerically-evaluated show the natural convection performance around the heat sink.
thermal resistances and experimentally-determined thermal resistances The result shows that the Rth value of the HHFHS is considerably
of two types of heat sinks (HS-1 and the HS-2) [20,21] at heat smaller than Rth values of the hollow and solid PFHSs at the given

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N.S. Effendi et al. International Journal of Thermal Sciences 126 (2018) 272–280

Fig. 7. Correlation-evaluated Nus as a function of numerically-determined Nus.

spacing between the fins, S, as a characteristic length.

hc s
Nus =
k (7)

g β ΔT s 3 Pr
Ras =
v2 (8)
where hc is the convective heat transfer coefficient, k is the thermal
conductivity of air, g is the gravity, β is the volumetric expansion
coefficient, ΔT is the temperature difference between the heat sink and
the ambient, ν is the kinematic viscosity, and Pr is the Prandtl number.
It should be noted that hc is a purely natural convection heat transfer
coefficient around the heat sink without thermal radiation.
Fig. 6(a) shows the numerically-determined Nus for all the para-
Fig. 6. Numerically-determined (a) unmodified and (b) modified Nus as a function of Ras metric conditions as a function of Ras. Fig. 6(a) shows quite scattered
around the HHFHS.
Nus values mainly due to the wide range of configuration parameters of
the HHFHS. Hence, in order to alleviate the scattering problem, mod-
Table 7 ified Nus, Nusmod, has been defined by considering dominant config-
The influence of the perforation size on the HHFHS. uration parameters affecting the fin efficiency, and it is shown as fol-
lows.
Type 12 Dp (mm) Tb (oC) q(W) Rth (K/W) Nu
0 70 12.88 3.49 1.04 −H
0.5 70 12.87 3.50 1.03 ⎡ D − Di 2000 ⎤
Nusmod = Nus . exp ⎢ ⎛ o⎜
⎞ ⎥ ⎟

1 70 12.97 3.47 1.04

⎢ ⎝ Do ⎠ ⎥ (9)
1.5 (current) 70 13.75 3.27 1.08 ⎣ ⎦

Type 18 0 70 10.71 4.20 1.23

where H is the fin height, Di is the internal fin diameter, and Do is the
2 70 11.09 4.06 1.28 external fin diameter.
4 70 11.59 3.88 1.33 Fin efficiency for the hybrid fin is expressed as
6 (current) 70 12.63 3.56 1.44
tanh (mH )
ηf =
mH (10)
conditions of Types 2 and 12. For the Type 22 condition, the Rth value m is defined as
of the HHFHS is notably smaller than that of the hollow PFHS but
comparable with that of the solid PFHS. It is also seen that the Rth M 4hc
m=
value of the HHFHS is considerably smaller than the Rth M value of the kf (Do − Di ) (11)
solid PFHS for all the conditions. Contrarily to the performances of Rth
and Rth M, the result shows that the Nu value of the solid PFHS is where kf is a thermal conductivity of the fin.
greater than those of the HHFHS and the hollow PFHS. m was formulated similarly using the way to define m for the
classical pin fin. Equations (10) and (11) clearly show that Eqn. (9)
contains dominant configuration parameters affecting the fin efficiency.
4. Nusselt number correlation Fig. 6 (b) shows Nusmod as a function of Ras. It is seen that Nusmod
values are less scattered than Nus values. The correlation for Nusmod has
Natural convection around the HHFHS is non-dimensionally re- been formulated as a function of only Ras. The correlation for Nusmod
presented using Nusselt, Nus, and Rayleigh, Ras, numbers based on the has been influenced by the correlation for the horizontal-base pin fin

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N.S. Effendi et al. International Journal of Thermal Sciences 126 (2018) 272–280

Fig. 8. Nus as a function of (Do-Di)/Do associated with various Ras for H/2000 of (a) 0.01,
(b) 0.0375, (c) 0.1. Fig. 9. Nus as a function of H/2000 associated with various Ras for (Do-Di)/Do of (a) 0.1,
(b) 0.5, (c) 0.9.

heat sink [13]. Consequently, the correlation for Nus has been obtained
by substituting the correlation for Nusmod into Eqn. (9). The final form of
the Type 18 (Di of 19 mm), on q, Rth, Nu is not negligible. It is also seen
the Nus correlation is shown as follows.
that the effect of the perforation size with a relatively narrow internal
−H 0.2 channel, such as the Type 12 (Di of 3 mm), on q, Rth, Nu is more
⎡ D − Di 2000 ⎤ 0.5 ⎡ −9000 ⎞ ⎤ moderate compared with the Type 18.
Nus = 0.07 . exp ⎢−⎛ o ⎜
⎞ ⎥. Ras . ⎢1 − exp ⎛
⎟ ⎜ ⎟

⎢ ⎝ Do ⎠ ⎥ ⎣ ⎝ Ras ⎠ ⎥ ⎦ In this study, the perforation was chosen to be as wide as possible by

⎣ ⎦
(12)
The perforation size may affect the natural convection around the
HHFHS, and thus its effect has been investigated for representative
cases. Table 7 summarizes the explored results. The result shows that
the effect of the perforation size with a wide internal channel, such as
considering the hybrid fin structure. Thus, the Nu correlation not in-
cluding the perforation size should be reasonable although there is the
meaningful influence of the perforation size on the natural convection
around the HHFHS with wide internal channels.
Fig. 7 shows the comparison of the correlation-evaluated Nusselt
numbers, Nuscor, with numerically-determined Nusselt numbers, Nusnum.

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N.S. Effendi et al.
It is found that nearly 80% of the data are within 20% discrepancy with
an average of 16%. The HHFHS has a more complex configuration
compared with classical pin fin heat sinks, and the Nus correlation,
shown in Eqn. (12), has been formulated using quite broad range of
configuration parameters as shown in Table 1. Thus, the Nus correlation
could be considered as a robust prediction method for natural con-
vection around the horizontal-base HHFHS associated with
Ras < 35000, 0.05 < (Do-Di)/Do < 0.95, 0.01 < H/2000 < 0.1.
5. Parametric effects
This section discusses parametric effects on the natural convection
heat transfer around the HHFHS. All the parametric study has been
conducted by utilizing the Nus correlation shown in Eqn. (12). The
parameters are the non-dimensional fin wall thickness, (Do-Di)/Do, and
the fin height, H/2000, with various Ras.
5.1. Effects of the fin wall thickness
This subsection discusses parametric effects of the fin wall thick-
ness, (Do-Di), on natural convection heat transfer around the HHFHS.
Fig. 8 shows Nus as a function of (Do-Di)/Do associated with various Ras
values for a few H/2000 values. A few interesting results should be
noted. First, any cases with greater Ras values result in greater Nus
values. It is obvious because the higher Ras denotes the greater buoy-
ancy-driven momentum. Second, as (Do-Di)/Do increases, Nus increases.
This result can be explained by the fin efficiency increasing as the in-
crease of the fin wall thickness. Third, the increase of the H/2000 in-
duces the more dependence of Nus on (Do-Di)/Do. It is mainly due to the
dependence of the fin efficiency on the fin height.
5.2. Effects of the fin height
The fin height effect on the natural convection heat transfer around
the HHFHS is discussed in this subsection.
Fig. 9 shows Nus as a function of H/2000 associated with various Ras
values for a few (Do-Di)/Do values.
The result shows that Nus values decrease with the increase of H/
2000 values. The reduction of the fin efficiency induced by the increase
of the fin height can explain this result. The smaller (Do-Di)/Do value
results in steeper reduction of Nus values with the increase of H/2000
value. The dependence of the fin efficiency on the fin wall thickness
may explain this result.
6. Conclusions
The prediction method for natural convection heat transfer around
hollow hybrid fin heat sinks (HHFHSs) have been investigated. The
HHFHS is a staggered array of hollow hybrid fins (HHFs). The HHF is a
hollow pin fin with a perforation near the fin base and radially-placed
plate fins. CFD models with 36 configurations of the HHFHS have been
generated and a commercially available CFD software package has been
used for the computation. The independence of the CFD model on the
fluid domain and the grid size has been carefully examined. The CFD
modeling methodology has been experimentally validated. Then, the
CFD models were utilized to obtain a broad range of thermal data for a
general representation of natural convection around the HHFHS. The
HHFHS performance was compared with hollow and solid PFHSs for
representative cases. A Nusselt number correlation for the natural
convection HHFHS has been obtained using the thermal data.
A few crucial results in this study are noteworthy. First, the mod-
ified Nusselt number has been defined to develop an effective Nusselt
number correlation. Second, it was found that the generated Nusselt
number correlation, based on Raleigh number, the fin height, the fin
wall thickness, and the external fin diameter, predicts Nusselt number
values with reasonable accuracy. The prediction has typically less than
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International Journal of Thermal Sciences 126 (2018) 272–280
a 20% discrepancy compared with numerically-determined values de-
spite complex and broadly-ranged configuration parameters. Third, the
parametric study using the correlation has revealed the individual ef-
fects of the fin wall thickness and the fin height on the natural con-
vection around the HHFHS.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by “Human Resources Program in Energy
Technology” of KETEP, granted financial resource from the Ministry of
Trade, Industry & Energy, Korea (No. 20164010200940) and also
supported by the Industrial Technology Innovation Program (Project
No: 10050980, System Reliability Improvement and Validation for New
Growth Power Industry Equipment) funded by the Ministry of Trade,
Industry & Energy (MI, Korea).
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