Natural convection air cooling characteristics of plate fins in a ventilated electronic cabinet

This work aims to evaluate natural convection air cooling characteristics of compact vertical rectangular plate fin arrays in a ventilated electronic cabinet. The work focuses on plate fin arrays applicable to notebook personal computers and engineering workstations. 3D laminar flow analyses using the finite volume method were performed in order to evaluate the natural air cooling characteristics of vertical rectangular plate fin arrays located in a ventilated electronic cabinet with cooling air inlet and exit. The governing equations are the continuity, momentum, and energy equations with buoyancy term using Boussinesq approximation. The equations were solved using the SIMPLE scheme. Calculations were carried out for plate spacing S=3, 4, 5 mm, fin height H=20, 30, 40 mm, cooling air inlet and exit height B=2.5, 5, 10 mm, and fin length L=10 mm. Numerical results indicated that the average heat transfer coefficient of the fin increases with increase in both the plate spacing S and the cooling air inlet and exit height B, and that the average heat transfer coefficient of the fin base is about one order of magnitude less than that of the fin surface. Results also showed that in the case where the fin length is equal to the air inlet height, the average fin heat transfer coefficient is almost equal to that of natural convection in a vertical rectangular channel. Additionally, based on numerical results, some empirical equations for the average Nusselt number of vertical rectangular plate fin arrays located in a ventilated electronic cabinet with cooling air inlet and exit are proposed as a function of Ra/sub s/.