Simulation and Experimental Study of Flexible Cooling System Based on Microchannel in PDMS

In this article, a flexible cooling method based on microchannels in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate is proposed, for those flexible and conformal circuits or systems. The proposed microchannels with various widths, depths, and quantities were designed and simulated in the software of STAR-CCM+, for performance investigation and prediction of the heat dissipation. The fabricated PDMS with microchannels was surface treated before attaching to an RF power amplifier circuits. By using an infrared thermal imager, the time-temperature curves and heat distribution of the circuit were measured and recorded, under the different cooling conditions of flow rates and microchannels. The main advantages of the proposed cooling concept are the convenience of fabrication, conformality, and flexibility, which indicates that the proposed concept is potentially to be an excellent candidate for cooling solution, to the particular applications of flexible or conformal circuits.