U- and L-shaped heat pipes heat sinks for cooling electronic components employed a least square smoothing method

• A formula smoothly predicts the performance curves of U- and L-shaped heat pipes.
• The present study ignores the thermal performance experiment of single heat pipe.
• Single U-heat pipe dissipates an average heat ratio of 32.54% and L-shaped of 14%.
• Minimum thermal resistances of the L-heat pipe are all higher than the U-shaped.
• High heat flux causes the heat pipe to reach its operating limits more easily.

Heat pipes-heat sink modules transfer heat from a heat source to the heat pipes, and then to the heat sink and out into the surrounding ambient, and are suitable for cooling electronic components through a forced convection mechanism. The configuration and thermal performance of the heat sinks with inserted heat pipes were studied in the present paper. This article uses experimental procedures to investigate the thermal performance of two embedded U-shaped heat pipe and six embedded L-shaped heat pipe thermal modules with different fan speeds and heat source areas. And via the superposition method and least-square estimators in experimental data, the performance curves of individual U- and L-shaped heat pipes were derived and predicted. Results show that the lowest thermal resistances of U- and L-shaped heat pipe-heat sinks are respectively 0.246 °C/W and 0.166 °C/W given dual fans operating at 3000RPM and 30 × 30 mm2 heat sources. Results for a single U-shaped heat pipe are 0.04 °C/W at 78.85 W, while sequential results for L-shaped heat pipes are 1.04 °C/W, 2.07 °C/W, 2.76 °C/W, 2.19 °C/W and 1.7 °C/W between 34 W and 40 W.