A Novel Design Method of Heat Sink with Conjugate Heat Transfer by Free-Shape Channel Modeling

Abstract Heat sink is an indispensable and even hard-core device which ensures the reliability and lifespan of most electronic equipment. Geometry factor plays a crucial role in the heat sink design. This paper proposes a novel geometric modeling method for heat sink with conjugate heat transfer properties, which involves parametric design of the flow passage patterns and cross-sections. Two assumed serpentine cooling plates with round and quadrilateral cross-sections are utilized to validate the proposed method respectively. During modeling, the fixed geometry dimensions are divided into several degrees of freedom to promote the flexibility of geometry factor with regard to heat sink design. The Bernstein-Bezier function is utilized to define these degrees of freedom. The numerical simulations based on the orthogonal experimental design are carried out, and then the results are analyzed and compared. The experimental results revealed that the optimised design can be obtained by adjusting the relevant control coefficients, which further improves the performance of cooling plate effectively. This paper guides the heat sink design and provides an insight into the structure problems from the perspective of geometry parameterization.