International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 53 (2010) 29352938

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

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

Technical Note

Natural convection around a radial heat sink

Seung-Hwan Yu, Kwan-Soo Lee *, Se-Jin Yook
School of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University, 17 Haengdang-dong, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 133-791, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
This paper presents the details of an experimental and numerical investigation of natural convection in a radial heat sink, composed of a horizontal circular base and rectangular ns. The general ow pattern is that of a chimney; i.e., cooler air entering from outside is heated as it passes between the ns, and then rises from the inner region of the heat sink. Parametric studies are performed to compare the effects of three geometric parameters (n length, n height, and number of ns) and a single operating parameter (heat ux) on the thermal resistance and the average heat transfer coefcient for the heat sink array. In addition, a correlation is proposed to predict the average Nusselt number for a radial heat sink. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 15 October 2009 Received in revised form 11 February 2010 Accepted 11 February 2010 Available online 19 March 2010 Keywords: Natural convection Heat sink Circular base Correlation

1. Introduction Light-emitting diode (LED) lights have recently attracted the attention of the illumination industry, due to their lower power consumption, longer life, and smaller, more durable structure compared to other light sources. However, their use presents a thermal problem, since about 70% of their total energy consumption is emitted as heat. An efcient heat sink design is essential to solve this problem. Natural convection heat sinks are appropriate for LED lights, considering their overall advantages. However, natural convection heat sinks commonly have rectangular bases, whereas LED lights are generally circular. It is therefore desirable to investigate natural convection heat transfer via a heat sink with a circular base. Numerous experimental [14] and numerical [5] studies of rectangular n or pin n heat sinks have been carried out. Starner and McManus [1] experimentally investigated natural convection heat transfer from four heat sinks of differing dimensions, with the heat sinks oriented vertically, at a 45 angle, and horizontally. Welling and Woolbridge [2] conducted an experimental study of vertically oriented rectangular ns of constant length attached to a vertical base. They found that there exists an optimal n height, corresponding to a maximum rate of natural convection heat transfer, for any given n spacing. Harahap and Mcmanus [3] performed experiments to calculate the average heat transfer coefcients for two different n lengths, and established a correlation with non-dimensional parameters and relevant n dimensions. However, most of these studies were concerned with heat sinks

with rectangular bases, which might be inefcient for cooling circular LED lights. In this study, natural convection from a heat sink with a circular base and rectangular ns is numerically and experimentally analyzed, and the thermo-ow pattern is observed. The effects of the number of ns, n length, n height, and heat ux on the thermal resistance and the average heat transfer coefcient are investigated. A correlation is proposed to predict the average heat transfer coefcient for this type of heat sink, as a function of heat sink dimensions and heat ux.

2. Mathematical modeling Fig. 1 shows a radial heat sink consisting of a circular base and rectangular ns. The ns were arranged radially at regular intervals. The heat sink base was oriented horizontally. The heat sink was made of aluminum, whose properties are listed in Table 1.

2.1. Governing equations For the numerical analysis, the following assumptions were imposed. (1) The ow was steady, laminar, and three-dimensional. (2) Aside from density, the properties of the uid were independent of temperature. (3) Air density was calculated by treating air as an ideal gas. (4) Radiation heat transfer was negligible. The governing equations were as follows.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 2 2220 0426; fax: +82 2 2295 9021. E-mail address: ksleehy@hanyang.ac.kr (K.-S. Lee). 0017-9310/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2010.02.032

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Nomenclature b cp F h H k L Mw Nu n Pr p _ q Rc RTH Ra* r T spacing between ns, mm coefcient of heat capacity, J/(kg C) view factor heat transfer coefcient, W/m2 K n height, mm thermal conductivity, W/m C n length, mm gas molecular weight, kg/kmol Nusselt number, hL/k number of ns in the normal direction Prandtl number pressure, N/m2 heat ux, W/m2 universal gas constant thermal resistance, C/W 2 _ 3 q2 g bcp pr2 o r i qL modied Rayleigh number, lLk2 radius, mm temperature, K or C t u v w n thickness, mm x-component of velocity, m/s y-component of velocity, m/s z-component of velocity, m/s

Greek symbols e emissivity l dynamic viscosity, N/m2 s h angle, q density, kg/m3 r StefanBoltzmann constant, 5.67 108 W/m2 K4 Subscripts avg average f uid (air) i inner o outer s solid (heat sink)

2.1.1. Air side Continuity equation:

2.1.2. Solid side Energy equation:

@ qu @ qv @ qw 0 @x @y @z
Momentum equations:

@2T @2T @2T 0 @ x2 @ y2 @ z2

The density of air was calculated from the ideal gas law,

@ qu2 @ quv @ quw @P l @x @y @z @x @ qv u @ qv 2 @ qv w @P l @x @y @z @y @ qwu @ qwv @ qw @P l @x @y @z @z

2

! @2u @2u @2u @ x2 @ y2 @ z2 ! @2v @2v @2v @ x2 @ y2 @ z2 ! @ w @ w @ w 2 2 @ x2 @y @z

2 2 2

Patm Rc =M w T

g q qa

3 4

where Mw of air is 28.966 kg/kmol. Periodic boundary conditions were adopted in accordance with the geometry of the heat sink (Fig. 1). Because of the number of grids and the computational time involved, only a single n was considered, as shown in Fig. 2. 2.2. Numerical procedure and validation

Energy equation:

@ quT @ qv T @ qwT k @ 2 T @ 2 T @ 2 T @x @y @z cp @ x2 @ y2 @ z2

! 5

The numerical simulation was conducted using Fluent V6.3, a commercially available CFD code based on the nite volume method. The grid dependence was investigated by varying the number of grid points from 22,680 to 285,714. We selected 65,016 grid points; additional grid points produced a change of less than 0.5% in the average heat sink temperature for the reference model of n = 20 and ro = 75 mm. The numerical results were validated with experimental data by comparing the differences between the ambient and heat sink temperatures. The geometric parameters of the experimental model were n = 20, ro = 75 mm, L = 55 mm, H = 21.3 mm, and t = 2 mm. Fig. 3 compares the temperature differences between the experimental and numerical results in terms of the heat ux applied to the heat sink base. This implies that the present numerical model can correctly predict the natural convection ow around a radial heat sink.
Table 1 Air and heat sink properties. Material Air Heat sink (aluminum) cp (J/ kg C) 1005.585 2800

l (N/m2 s)
1.834 10
5

k (W/m C) 2.643 10 193

5

q (kg/
m3) Eq. (7) 880

Fig. 1. Radial heat sink with a circular base and rectangular ns.

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2937

40

Computational results Experimental results

30

Tavg T

20

10

200

400

600
2

800

q(W/m )
Fig. 2. Computational domain and dimensions. Fig. 3. Comparison of the temperature differences between the experimental and numerical results.

3. Results and discussion Parametric studies were carried out by numerically investigating the effects of the number of ns, n length, n height, and heat ux on the thermal resistance and the heat transfer coefcient. Based on these results, a correlation was proposed to predict the Nusselt number for a heat sink with a horizontal circular base and rectangular ns. 3.1. Thermo-ow characteristics There are two ows, i.e., vertical and horizontal ows, around the radial heat sink. The vertical ow is in the upward direction, since air is heated by the heat sink (which is maintained at a higher temperature) and becomes lighter than the surrounding air. The horizontal ow is created by air entering from outside the heat sink to make up for the vertical ow in the inner region. Therefore, the overall ow pattern is chimney-like. The temperature of heat sink maintains almost uniformly high because of high conductivity of aluminum. The heat transfer rate in the outer region of the heat sink was higher than in the inner region. This was because the temperature difference between the air and the heat sink decreased as the cool air proceeded towards the inner region of the heat sink. 3.2. Parametric study The effects of the number of ns, n length, n height, and heat ux on the thermal resistance and the heat transfer coefcient were investigated. The reference model is n = 20, ro = 75 mm, _ 700 W=m2 . L = 55 mm, H = 21.3 mm, t = 2 mm, and q The effect of the number of ns on the thermal resistance and heat transfer coefcient is shown in Fig. 4(a). The average heat transfer coefcient decreased as the number of ns increased, since the ow rate of the cooler air entering the spaces between the ns decreased and the air was heated more quickly on account of the reduced space between ns. However, when the number of ns was less than 36, the thermal resistance of the heat sink decreased with increasing n, since the effect of the increased heat transfer surface area was larger than the effect of the decreased heat transfer coefcient. When the number of ns was greater than 36, the thermal resistance of the heat sink increased with increasing n,

since the heat transfer coefcient was very small. Consequently, there exists optimum number of ns that gives the minimum thermal resistance. Fig. 4(b) shows the effect of the n length. As the n length increased, the thermal resistance and average heat transfer coefcient decreased. The thermal resistance leveled off and reached a steady value when the n was longer than 55 mm. This was because the air temperature in the inner region was almost the same as the heat sink temperature, and hence any additional n length beyond 55 mm did not contribute to the heat transfer rate. Fig. 4(c) indicates the effect of the n height. A lower thermal resistance resulted from the increased heat transfer surface area created by the incremented n height. However, the change in the heat transfer coefcient was relatively small, since the velocity of the air entering from outside increased very little with increasing n height. Fig. 4(d) illustrates the effect of the heat ux applied to the heat sink base. The decrease in thermal resistance due to increasing heat ux resulted in a greater rising air velocity, which in turn increased the ow rate of the cooler air entering from outside. Accordingly, the average heat transfer coefcient increased almost linearly, thanks to the enhanced effect of natural convection. 3.3. Correlation A correlation for predicting the Nusselt number for a heat sink with a horizontal circular base and rectangular ns was derived as a function of the parameters investigated in the previous section, as well as other geometric parameters, and was obtained from numerical data. This formula is based on the correlations for rectangular heat sinks obtained in previous studies [1,3], using average n spacing and the modied channel Rayleigh number,

Nu 0:195Ra 0:263
where Ra

 1:35  0:444  0:142  1:4 nbavg ro ro ro H L bavg H

2 _ 3 q2 g bcp pr 2 o r i qL ; bavg lLk2

= {(2pro/n t) + (2p(ro L)/n t)}/2 ,

and the properties are based on the lm temperature. The predicted correlation was consistent with the numerical data, with an error of less than 10%, when t = 2 mm, 20 6 n 6 36,

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3.00

2.75

RTH havg
6

RTH havg
h avg(W/m K) h avg(W/m K)
6

havg (W/m K)

RTH( C/W)

RTH( C/W)

2.50 4

2.75 5

2.25 24 32 40 2
2.50 40 50 60 4

n (a) The effect of the number of fins

3.0 6 3.5

L (mm)

(b) The effect of the fin length

7

RTH havg
h avg(W/m K)
2.5
RTH( C/W)

RTH havg
3.0 6

RTH( C/W)

5 2.0

2.5

1.5 20

30

40

2.0 200

400

600
2

800

1000

4 1200

H (mm)

(c) The effect of the fin height

q (W/m ) (d) The effect of the heat flux

Fig. 4. The results of parametric study. (a) The effect of the number of ns, (b) the effect of the n length, (c) the effect of the n height, (d) the effect of the heat ux.

21.3 mm 6 H 6 63.9 mm, 75 mm 6 ro 6 102 mm, _  1100 W=m2 . 80 mm, and 300 W=m2  q 4. Conclusions

40 mm 6 L 6

creased in proportion to the heat ux applied to the heat sink base. A correlation was proposed to predict the average Nusselt number for a radial heat sink. References
[1] K.E. Starner, H.N. McManus, An experimental investigation of free convection heat transfer from rectangular n arrays, J. Heat Transfer 85 (2) (1963) 273 278. [2] J.R. Welling, C.B. Wooldridge, Free convection heat transfer coefcients from rectangular vertical ns, Trans. ASME J. Heat Transfer 87 (3) (1965) 439444. [3] F. Harahap, H.N. McManus, Natural convection heat transfer from horizontal rectangular n arrays, J. Heat Transfer 89 (1) (1967) 3238. [4] R.T. Huang, W.J. Sheu, C.C. Wang, Orientation effect on natural convective performance of square pin n heat sinks, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 51 (910) (2008) 23682376. [5] S. Baskaya, M. Sivrioglu, M. Ozek, Parametric study of natural convection heat transfer from horizontal rectangular n arrays, Int. J. Therm. Sci. 39 (8) (2000) 797805.

Natural convection from a radial heat sink was experimentally and numerically investigated. The general ow pattern was like that of a chimney; i.e., the cooling air entering from outside was heated as it passed between the ns, and then rose from the inner region of heat sink. Parametric studies were performed to compare the effects of the number of ns, n length, n height, and heat ux on the thermal resistance and the heat transfer coefcient. As the number of ns, n length, and n height increased, the thermal resistance and heat transfer coefcient generally decreased. However, there existed optimal values of the number of ns and n length to obtain an effective low heat sink temperature. The thermal resistance decreased and the heat transfer coefcient in-