Experimental and numerical investigations on heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics of integrated U-shape micro heat pipe array with rectangular pin fins

A novel air-cooled CPU heat sink integrated U-shape micro heat pipe array with rectangular pin fins (U-MHPA-RPF) is proposed. The heat transfer and friction characteristics of U-MHPA-RPF were investigated by the wind tunnel experimental set up systematically. The results show that the operating temperature can be reduced easily below 75 degrees C when the input power reached 130 W. The simplified three-dimensional model was established in ANSYS ICEM, the conjugate heat transfer from the CPU to the air were computed numerically in ANSYS Fluent for a range of air flow at different heating powers. Verified by the experimental results, the thermal resistance of each part of the heat sink is discussed. The contact thermal resistance is the major component, the advantage of the U-MHPA-RPF heat sink is proved by the lower values of the thermal resistance of the heat sink. By changing the Reynolds number, it is found that the cooling device could be operated at small air flow rates to reduce fan power consumption and noise.