Thermal management of power electronics with liquid cooled metal foam heat sink

Abstract In this paper, a combined experimental and numerical study of liquid cooled aluminum foam (AF) heat sink applicable for high power electronics cooling was conducted. AF heat sinks with porosity (0.88) and pore densities (10 PPI and 20 PPI) are fabricated and the empty channel is employed for comparison. Experimental measurements were conducted subjected to non-Darcy flow regime. Numerical analysis was based on the Brinkman-Forchheimer extended Darcy momentum model, together with the energy equations of local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) and local thermal equilibrium (LTE) models. The permeability and inertia coefficient of the AF samples were correlated based on the measured pressure drop. New correlations of interfacial heat transfer coefficient between water and AF solid matrix were also determined. Numerically predicted local surface temperature and temperature field distributions were presented and validated with the experimental measurements. The results reveal that the permeability decreases and the inertial coefficient increases with increasing pore density. The thermal performance of AF heat sinks is appreciably superior to the empty channel, under a given flow rate, the Num of the AF heat sink can be 1.40–1.76 times of the empty channel. Heat transfer enhancement by 20 PPI foam is inappreciable, approximately 5%, compared to that of 10 PPI. The LTNE model demonstrates more accurate for predicting the spatial temperature distributions than the LTE model. The results also indicate that the non-equilibrium heat transfer phenomenon in water-cooled AF heat sink is not pronounced, and the non-equilibrium effect is declined with increasing velocity.