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Conjugate heat transfer CFD tutorial for plate fin heat sink

Method · November 2020

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.26603.36640

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Conjugate Heat
Transfer
With OpenFOAM, SALOME and Paraview

Aqeel Ahmed
 Configuration*
Plate Fin Heat Sink

Air inlet
Dimensions in mm

Finned
heat sink
Duct

*From the article:

Ventola, Luigi, et al. "Unshrouded plate fin heat sinks for electronics
Heater cooling: validation of a comprehensive thermal model and cost
optimization in semi-active configuration." Energies 9.8 (2016): 608.
Outputs
Performance of the heat sink

• Overall thermal resistance form ambient air to the heater

• Numerical modelling (CFD)
Energies 2016, 9, 608 4 of

Ta
Compute interface
temperature from
simulation

Compute or
calculate junction
temperature
Rj,a

Rj,a is the thermal resistance from Tinterface

ambient to heater junction
Tj − Ta
Rj,a = [K/W] Tj
P
Tj can be computed either as the
volume average temperature of the
heater or by using
Figure 2. Scheme of the thermal resistance network of the considered heat sink.
Tj = Tinterface + Rjc P
Tinter face is the area averaged
First, in most applications, R jc is given by the manufacturer, who provides the electron
temperature at the interface
between heater and finned sink
components already embedded into the cases. Hence, R jc is not directly modeled in the presen
Geometry
Preparation for Regions and Boundaries in Salome

• Define regions
• For heater, fins and fluid (air)
• Use partition tool to combine regions (boundaries aware)
• Define boundaries
• Make groups based on faces
• Avoid making boundaries that lie on the interface of each
region (OpenFOAM can extract them automatically using
splitMeshRegions)
Mesh
Salome or SnappyHexMesh

• Salome (for tetrahedron small meshes quite fast)

• In mesh module
• Use Netgen 1D-3D
• Optional size control using regions
• Add regions and face groups form the geometry
• Export as ‘.unv’ file
• Read in OpenFOAM using ideasUnvToFoam
Case Preparation
OpenFOAM

• Select most relevant case from the heat transfer

chtMultiRegionFoam tutorials (OpenFOAM v7)

• Like heatedDuct (rename as required)

Each {region} in regions
• Modify/add heater_solid, fins_solid, fluid

Choose correct transport and thermo-physical

• constant/{region} properties and heat sources (in fvOptions)

• 0/{region}
Set appropriate boundary
conditions

• system/{region} Choose the numerical themes for discretisation

of time, velocity and other quantities

• system/controlDict Set the time steps, write times and appropriate

post-processing functions
Case Preparation
OpenFOAM

• Post-processing
• Quantities for monitoring solution
• Volume averaged temperatures
• Area averaged interface temperature
• Residuals (if required)
• Heat fluxes (if required)
Case Preparation
Checking/Visualising Mesh (Paraview)

• In a new copied relevant conjugate heat transfer case

• Run ideasUnvToFoam
• Rescale the mesh if required (here from meters to mm)
• Using transformPoints
• Run splitMeshRegions
• Run checkMesh
• Launch Paraview (make a new empty file first like pfhs.foam)
• paraview pfhs.foam &
Mesh Visualisation
Paraview

• Run paraview pfhs.foam &

• Load all regions and patches
• Use Extract Block filter to visualise each region
• Use extractBlock again to visualise patch in each region
• Active vtkBlockColors to see different patches
Running and Monitoring
OpenFOAM

• After mesh, setup Allrun script

• Set the decomposition parameters
• Launch in parallel
• Monitoring results
• Using foamMonitor realtime updated stats
Results
Visualising in Paraview

• Reconstruct the case

• Use the same procedure as for visualising mesh
• Use cuts, slices as required
• Visualise using surface/volume
Results
Computation of thermal resistance

• From post-processing
• Average and interface temperatures
Case parameters
Inputs and properties

Inputs
Ambient Temperature [K] 296.9
Inlet velocity [m/s] 5.6
Heater input power [W] 56.64

Region Properties
Heater Fins Air
Density [kg/m3] 1.28 2700 1.196
Cp [J/kgK] 1004 900 1005
Thermal conductivity [W/mK] 80 200
Molecular Weight [g/mol] 50 27 28.9
Viscosity [kg/ms] 1.8E-05
Prandtl Number 0.7
 Results
Heater to ambient thermal resistance Energies 2016, 9, 608

Tj = Tinterface + Rjc P
Ta

Tj − Ta
Rj,a = [K/W]
P
Ta = 296.9 K Rj,a
Rjc = 0.5 K/W
Tinterface = 343.48 K (From simulation) Tinterface

interface Tj
temperature
Sim (Coarse) Exp Analytical
1.4 Rj,a is the thermal
resistance from ambient to
1.32 1.31 Junction heater junction
Figure 2. Scheme of the thermal resistance network of the considered heat sink.
Heater - Air Thermal Resistance [W/K]

temperature
1.20
1.05 First, in most applications, R jc is given by the manufacturer, who provides the
components already embedded into the cases. Hence, R jc is not directly modeled in th
work, being specific to the considered application and usually experimentally known.
Second, case-to-sink resistance Rcs is calculated as:
0.7

tb
Rcs =
kAb
0.35 where k is the thermal conductivity of the heat sink, and tb and Ab are the thickness and cro
surface area of baseplate.
Sink-to-ambient resistance Rsa is then computed by analytically modeling the air
pressure across the unshrouded heat sink. Note that the following considerations are safely a
to any type of flow bypass (top, side or both) or to fully shrouded configurations. Figure
the average air flow velocities in the different sections of the duct where the heat sink
namely: the approach velocity (vd ) at the entrance of the duct; the channel velocity (vch ) th
View publication stats channels made by neighboring fins (fin channels); the side bypass velocity (vbs ) and the to