Comparison of fluid flow and thermal characteristics of plate-fin and pin-fin heat sinks subject to a parallel flow

In this study, we compare the thermal performances of the two types of heat sinks most commonly used in the electronic equipment cooling: plate-fin and pin-fin heat sinks. In order to obtain the fluid flow and thermal characteristics of heat sinks, an experimental investigation is conducted. Based on the experimental results of the present study and the available data from the existing literature, the correlations of the friction factor and the Nusselt number are suggested for each type of heat sink. Correlations for the pin-fin heat sinks are newly developed, while correlations for the plate-fin heat sinks are selected from previous models. By using the appropriate correlations, thermal resistances of the optimized plate-fin and pin-fin heat sinks are compared under fixed pumping power conditions. Finally, a contour map, which depicts the ratio of the thermal resistances of the optimized plate-fin and pin-fin heat sinks as a function of dimensionless pumping power and dimensionless length, is presented. The contour map indicates that optimized plate-fin heat sinks possess lower thermal resistances than optimized pin-fin heat sinks when dimensionless pumping power is small and the dimensionless length of heat sinks is large. On the contrary, the optimized pin-fin heat sinks have smaller thermal resistances when dimensionless pumping power is large and the dimensionless length of heat sinks is small.