FORCED-AIR COOLING BY USING MANIFOLD MICROCHANNEL HEAT SINKS

A study of manifold microchannel (MMC) heat sinks for forced air cooli ng was performed experimentally. The manifold microchannel heat sink d iffers from a traditional microchannel (TMC) heat sink in that the flo w length is greatly reduced to a small fraction of the total length of the heal sink. In other words, the MMC heat sink features many inlet and outlet channels, alternating at a periodic distance along the leng th of the microchannels while the TMC heat sink features one inlet and one outlet channels. The present study primarily focused to investiga te the effects of geometrical parameters on the thermal performance of the manifold microchannel heat sinks for optimal design. Also, the th ermal resistances of the MMC heat sinks were compared with those of th e TMC heat sinks. Experimental results showed the thermal resistances of MMC heat sinks were affected strongly by the pumping power, the mic rochannel width and the manifold inlet/outlet channel width, but weakl y by the microchannel thickness-width ratio and the microchannel depth coorporated with the manifold inlet/outlet channel width. However, it was found that there existed the optimum values of the latter paramet ers. Under the optimum condition of geometrical parameters in the pres ent study, the thermal resistance of the MMC heat sink was approximate ly 35% lower than that of a TMC heat sink, which clearly demonstrated the effectiveness of using a manifold.