Optimum thermal resistance of the multiple piezoelectric–magnetic fan system

An innovative cooling technology vibrating fans with a piezoelectric–magnetic source is investigated for the thermal management of electronic devices. The objective of the present work is to establish a cooling system that uses a piezoelectric–magnetic force as a vibrating source to drive multiple fans for cooling. The vibration driving force is generated by a piezoelectric material actuator coupled with multiple magnetic resonance forces. The cooling performance in terms of thermal resistance is evaluated and measured with different configurations, including the aspect ratio of the fan pitch (P/L) that ranges from 0.167 to 0.333 and the ratio of the gap between the fan tip and the heat sink (G/L) that ranges from 0.0167 to 0.0833 with different fan input powers ranging from 0.15 W to 0.25 W. The results indicate that multiple piezoelectric–magnetic fan (“MPMF”) system is efficient consuming low power with an improved thermal resistance performance (76.7%) compared with natural convection. In addition, the optimum P/L can be found at 0.233 with different fan input powers. Furthermore, the optimum G/L is 0.05 whereas the optimum P/L is 0.233. The MPMF system can apparently enhance thermal resistance with the advantage of lower power consumption.