Comparative Effectiveness of Different Phase Change Materials to Improve Cooling Performance of Heat Sinks for Electronic Devices

This paper thermo-physically characterizes salt hydrate, paraffin wax and milk fat as phase change materials (PCMs). The three PCMs are compared in terms of improving heat sink (HS) performance for cooling electronic packaging. An experimental study is carried out on commercially available finned HS with and without PCM under natural ventilation (NV) and forced ventilation (FV) at different heat loads (4 W to 10 W). The results indicate that integration of all of the PCMs into the HS improves its cooling performance; however, milk fat lags behind the other two PCMs in terms of cooling produced. A three-dimensional pressure-based conjugate heat transfer model has been developed and validated with experimental results. The model predicts the parametric influence of PCM melting range, thermal conductivity and density on HS thermal management performance. The HS cooling performance improves with increased density and conductivity while it deteriorates with the wider melting range of the PCMs.