Study on Thermal Performance of Phase Change Material Heat Sink for Electronic Device Cooling

Abstract

For the efficient thermal management of the electronic devices, many studies have been conducted to evaluate the cooling performance of the phase change material based cooling system through the combination of the conventional heat sink and phase change materials. Previous studies have mainly been conducted on the heat transfer and material’s properties of the cooling devices and the phase change material, however research on improving the cooling performance by active thermal energy circulation between the phase change materials and system optimization through the thermal design of the phase change material based cooling system has been limited. Therefore, this study proposed the new type of the phase change material based cooling system with enhanced cooling performance than conventional cooling system, depending on the type of the heat source for electronic devices and the operating condition. Through the hierarchical design of the phase change materials, the new type of phase change material based cooling system was proposed that enables the active thermal control through the thermal energy circulation rather than the heat transport by physical circulation of the refrigerant, and a preliminary study was also conducted on how to improve the cooling performance of the cooling system by considering the thermal characteristic of the phase change material. In this study, the new cooling system was designed with enhanced cooling performance than conventional cooling system, and experimentally verified the cooling performance in operating condition. Numerical simulation was also conducted for the analysis of the thermal energy circulation characteristics and the thermal characteristic among the phase change materials. The numerical analysis was verified through experimental results conducted under the same conditions. By conducting a preliminary study on how to increase the cooling performance by the thermal characteristics of the materials according to the method of installation of phase change materials, it has become the basis for the study of the cooling device optimization through the thermal design of the cooling system based on phase change materials. Therefore, based on the improved cooling performance of the new type of the phase change material based cooling system presented in this study, it is expected that this system will contribute to the increase in cooling efficiency of the electronic devices applied to various industries, and that the proposed method for optimal design of phase change material based cooling systems will provide guidelines for the factors considered in the design of the cooling system.