Flow and heat transfer in porous micro heat sink for thermal management of high power LEDs

A novel porous micro heat sink system is presented for thermal management of high power LEDs, which has high heat transport capability. The operational principle and heat transfer characteristics of porous micro heat sink are analyzed. Numerical model for the micro heat sink is developed to describe liquid flow and heat transfer based on the local thermal equilibrium of porous media, and it is solved with SIMPLE algorithm. The numerical results show that the heated surface temperature of porous micro heat sink is low at high heat fluxes and is much less than the bearable temperature level of LED chips. The heat transfer coefficient of heat sink is very high, and increasing the liquid velocity can enhance the average heat transfer coefficient. The overall pressure loss of heat sink system increases with the increasing the inlet velocity, but the overall pressure drop is much less than the pumping pressure provided by micro pump. The micro heat sink has good performance for thermal management of high power LEDs, and it can improve the reliability and life of LEDs.