Title :
Fan swirl effects on cooling heat sinks and electronic packages
Author :
Thurlow, Ernest ; Rather, Eric ; Mansingh, Vivek
Author_Institution :
Appl. Thermal Technol. Inc., Santa Clara, CA, USA
Abstract :
This paper presents fan swirl effects on cooling heat sinks and electronic packages. The case-to-air thermal resistance, θca, of a power-dissipating device in a duct was compared with and without swirled airflow, for a variety of heat sink configurations. For a given volumetric airflow rate through the duct, power dissipation, and heat sink geometry, the presence of swirl always reduced θca. Enhanced cooling due to swirl was most evident at low airflow rates and with crosscut heat sink geometries. Swirl effects were observed as far as 15 diameters downstream of the fan. Based on these results, to improve the accuracy of CFD models, the effects of swirl should be taken into account in analysis of heat sinks and packages downstream of fans
Keywords :
cooling; heat sinks; swirling flow; thermal management (packaging); thermal resistance; CFD models; case-to-air thermal resistance; cooling heat sinks; crosscut heat sink; duct; electronic packages; enhanced cooling; fan swirl effects; power-dissipating device; temperature difference; volumetric airflow rate; Computational fluid dynamics; Ducts; Electronic packaging thermal management; Electronics cooling; Electronics packaging; Geometry; Heat sinks; Power dissipation; Resistance heating; Thermal resistance;
Conference_Titel :
Semiconductor Thermal Measurement and Management Symposium, 2000. Sixteenth Annual IEEE
Conference_Location :
San Jose, CA
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-5916-X
DOI :
10.1109/STHERM.2000.837067
