Constructal design in the cooling and hydraulic performance of tube heat sinks

Abstract

Liquid-cooled hot plates require effective thermal management which can be accomplished by implementing appropriate cooling architectures. This investigation is about high heat-generating systems and reports the performance of heated plates with various cooling flow configurations: Serpentine flow, parallel tubes flow, and two tree-shape flow systems. Single and double objectives with size constraint are studied to obtain the best design. The influence of fluid inlet position is also studied. The results are presented in terms of hydraulic and thermal characteristics for plates that is subject to a constant heat flux, and contain tubes with fixed total lateral area for cooling. A 3D numerical study is conducted to analyze the performance of these systems for Reynolds numbers ranging from 1000 to 33,000. The results obtained include temperatures of the plate, uniformity of temperature of the plate, fluid flow resistance and heat dissipation. Dimensionless parameters are identified to characterize the thermal performance, hydraulic performance, and hydrothermal performance as a function of the Reynolds number. The results show that a tree-shaped flow network of tubes inserted in the plate with inlet placed at the center of the plate presents the best cooling performance, with more cooling capacity and less flow resistance (and pumping power).