Thermo-fluidic analysis of a single piezofan in longitudinal channel

Abstract Most past surveys and conclusions have clearly indicated that more than 55% of electronic device's failures are related to the inability to control high heat generated entirely. The conventional cooling methods typically consist of air-cooling processes, which involve various types of heat sinks in free and forced convection, becomes inadequate to meet the cooling requirements with high performance, compact size, and increased heat generation advanced electronic devices. The main aims of this investigation are (i) to analyze the airflow around a horizontally oriented piezofan, which is oscillating transversally to longitudinal channel airflow, and (ii) to show its applicability to achieve successful thermal management on a flat heated surface at an electronic component. The coupled-analysis was performed on a 2D-laminar flow model by combining the cantilever motion analysis with fluid flow and heat transfer using COMSOL Multiphysics software. The model based on the finite element method (FEM) is determined using an Arbitrarily Lagrange-Euler scheme (ALE) in Fluid-Structure-Interaction (FSI) analysis. The cooling performance of piezofan is computed by evaluating the average forced convective heat transfer coefficient at the heated section of the channel surface with an inlet flow velocity of uin = 0.1 m/s, i.e., Rem = 1040. The simulation results have shown the high performance of these fans compared to without piezofan flow conditions. The best performance was obtained at which the moving tip of the fan at the middle of the heated surface (∆xp = −20 mm) with a distance from the heated surface of G = 7 mm. Compared with the laminar flow conditions without piezofan, the convection heat transfer coefficient is increased by 231%.