Experimental and numerical studies on performance of PCM-based heat sink with different configurations of internal fins

This paper presents both experimental and numerical investigations on the application of a PCM-based heat sink for the purpose of thermal management. A comparison was carried out between heat sink with and without phase change material (PCM). The effects of various parameters such as power levels, number of fins, fin height and fin thickness were studied. The results showed that increasing the number of fins and fin height resulted in an appreciable increase in overall thermal performance. Increasing the fin thickness only gave a slight improvement. There was an optimum fin thickness, above which the heat sink performance showed no further improvement. Increasing the power level input, as expected, increased the melting rate of the PCM. In all cases, heat conduction was the primary mode of heat transfer at the initial stage of melting. At the later stage, free convection played a more crucial role in enhancing the melting of the PCM.