L-type heat pipes application in electronic cooling system

This paper describes the design, modeling, and test of a heat sink with embedded L-shaped heat pipes and plate fins. This type of heat sink is particularly well suited for cooling electronic components such as microprocessors using forced convection. The mathematical model includes all major components from the thermal interface through the heat pipes and fins. It is augmented with measured values for the heat pipe thermal resistance. A Windows-based computer program uses an iterative superposition method to predict the thermal performance. Thermal performance testing shows that a representative heat sink with six heat pipes will carry 160 W and has reached a minimum thermal resistance of 0.22 °C/W. The computer software predicted a thermal resistance of 0.21 °C/W, which was within 5% of the measured value. The result of this work is a useful thermal management device along with a validated computer-aided tool to facilitate rapid design.