Numerical and experimental evaluation of planar and staggered heat sinks

The performance of an air-cooled planar and staggered bonded heat sink is evaluated using both experimental and numerical approaches. The performance is evaluated for three power settings of 100, 150, and 200 W and for three approach velocities at 200, 400, and 600 ft/min. The comparison of the measurements and predictions shows good agreement, indicating that computational methods of the type employed in this work are a cost effective means of designing and evaluating high-performance heat sinks. The results demonstrate that the thermal performance of the staggered fin configuration is superior over the planar fin configuration by approximately 8% over the power and flow ranges examined herein. This enhanced thermal performance, however, was realized at the expense of an additional pressure drop of 10 to 20%.