Abstract
Thermal management is fundamental to ensure that electronics components
operate at their design temperatures for improved performance and
lifetime. As current electronic devices become more compact and more
power dense, the amount of heat to be dissipated per area also
increases. Therefore, it is necessary to design heat sinks capable of
maintaining a low operating temperature and a small packaging envelope.
Topology optimization, due to its geometric freedom, can be a useful
tool to develop passive heat sinks capable of rejecting as much heat as
possible in a limited space. This paper presents the design, modeling,
and testing of topology optimized heat sinks for a commercial tablet.
Firstly, a numerical model of the tablet’s thermal behavior is
developed. Secondly, the topology optimization problem is formulated and
implemented. Two topology optimization approaches are used: the
non-robust approach and the robust approach. COMSOL’s optimization
module is used to conduct the optimization and the Globally Convergent
version of the Method of Moving Asymptotes is used as the optimization
algorithm. Finally, three heat sinks were fabricated in aluminum: the
two resulting topology optimized designs (robust and non-robust), and
one baseline L-shaped heat sink. The latter heat sink is used to compare
the performance of topology optimized and traditionally designed heat
sinks. It was shown that topology optimized heat sinks can reduce the
temperature of the heat dissipating components of a consumer tablet.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 118429 |
Journal | International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer |
Volume | 142 |
Number of pages | 12 |
ISSN | 0017-9310 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2019 |
Keywords
- Experimental testing
- Heat sinks
- Modeling
- Topology optimization