• DECEMBER 2019

Cooling Electronics using a

Heat Sink
Air Velocity
Flow

Velocity contours at Z = 0.005 m, mid-plane in the fin gap

• The fins are solid walls and stop air from flowing normally. This is also observed near
the side walls of the copper plate. This can be seen by the blue region near the Velocity Contour at Z = 0 m,
copper plate (under the base of the heat sink). mid-plane along the fin
• As air enters the gap between the fins, the air velocity initially increases. This can be
seen by the red region near the heat sink entrance. This increase in velocity is
attributed to the reduced cross-sectional area between the fins, and it is required by
the conservation of mass as the same amount of air is being moved through a
smaller channel.
• Air velocity between fins reduces along the length of the channel due to viscous friction with fin walls.
Air Velocity in the Fin Gap
Entrance
• Mass flow rate of air entering the ‘Entrance’ surface must leave from either ‘Top’
or ‘Exit’ surfaces.
Top
• The fluid crosses the ‘Top’ surface and leaves the region between the fins,
especially near the fin entrance. This can be visualized from the vector plot.
• This ‘leakage’ of fluid from the fin region decreases along the length of the fin.

Exit

Flow

Velocity Vector at Z = 0.005 m, mid-plane in the fin gap

3
Recirculating Regions
• Owing to the flow separation, a large recirculating region is created
just downstream of the heat sink. This can be seen in the vector plot
at the Z = 0 m plane (below).
• Similar recirculating regions are created as air flows bends around
the corners of the fins. This is clearly visible near the external walls
of the heat sink. A zoomed-in image at the Y = 0.035 m plane shows
this smaller fluid recirculation.

Flow Velocity Vectors at Z = 0 m

Fluid Recirculation

Velocity vectors at Y = 0.035 m

Heat Sink Temperature
• The average steady-state temperature of the heating surface is ~ 334.3 K.
• Because of high thermal conductivity of copper, the steady-state temperature of the plate is uniform. Its temperature ranges
between 332 K and 335 K.
• The thermal energy is conducted through the fins of the heat sink and this energy is transferred to the flowing fluid via
convection. The heat sink increases the overall heat transfer by increasing the heat transfer surface area.
• The convective heat transfer is higher near the heat sink entrance because of higher air velocity and lower air temperature. The
heat transfer from the fins to the fluid reduces along the fin because of the reduction in air velocity and in temperature
difference between the fluid and solid.
• The fin temperature at the entrance is, therefore, lower compared to that at the exit.

Entrance

Exit
Temperature contour of the copper plate

5
Appendix
Cooling Electronics using a Heat Sink
FMG Initialization

• Full Multigrid (FMG) initialization is used to obtain better

initial solutions to complex flow problems. These initial
solutions help accelerate the flow convergence.
• During FMG initialization, the inviscid Euler Equations are
solved using first order discretization to obtain an
approximate solution.
• This initialization can be performed from the Fluent console
using the following TUI command.
Approximate flow solution (at Z = 0 m) after FMG Initialization
/solve/initialize/fmg yes

7
First-Order to Higher-Order Blending Factor

• In certain cases, the local flow fluctuations make it difficult to obtain a steady-state solution using higher-order discretization
schemes. In this example, local flow fluctuations are attributed to flow separation and the creation of recirculating regions in
the flow field.
• However, it is quite possible to achieve a fully converged steady-state solution with the first-order discretization scheme.
• The First-Order to Higher-Order Blending Factor helps achieve a steady-state solution which is better than first-order accurate
solution.
• A blending factor of 0 reduces the discretization to a first-order scheme. Using a value of 1 will recover higher-order
discretization.

8
Best Practices: Meshing

• In the gap between two fins of this heat sink, the current
mesh has the following features:
‐ 5 inflation layer on each side, and
‐ ~ 3-4 cells in between these inflation layers.
• This mesh has been used only for illustrative purposes.
• To obtain an accurate solution, it is recommended to
have ~ 10-12 cells in between the inflation layers in the
gap region of the heat sink.
• This will effectively capture both the flow as well as the
thermal gradients in the solution. Displaying Mesh on
Y = 0.035 m plane