Thermal performance of

the multilayered
honeycomb microchannel
heat sink

Sanjay B.R.
1st M.Tech
SJEC

CONTENTS
Introduction
Design

and experimental setup

Results

and Discussions

Conclusion
References

1. Introduction :
The

cooling of electronic components is one of the

key issues in the design and packaging of
electronic equipment.

Insufficient

thermal control can lead to poor

reliability, short life and failure of the electronic
components.

To

develop a high effectiveness, reliable, costeffective, compact heat exchanger is one of the
key issues for effective use of thermal energy.

Air

is the first choice to be considered as the

coolant.

Limits of air cooling technology

Larger heat sinks
Intolerable noise levels
Increased mechanical stress on the
components

Advanced liquid cooling technologies must be

developed as alternatives to meet the thermal
design requirements.

Compared to the air system, benefits of liquid

cooling systems are,
The acceptance of higher heat flux density
Localized component cooling
Quieter working systems.

 Microchannel

heat sinks are widely used in

the electronic components cooling for the high
heat transfer coefficients obtained in small
scale of large area-to-volume ratios.

For

hydrodynamically and thermally

developed laminar duct flow, the heat transfer
coefficient is inversely proportional to the
hydraulic diameter.

When

liquid flows through a long parallel

heated microchannel, its temperature will rise
as a result of the heat input along the flow
direction.

 This

paper proposes the heat transfer enhancement

by stacking the multilayer microchannel plates with
etched honeycomb cells to form the well-designed
staggered fluid flow channels.

It

is expected that not only the surface area is

expanded but the flows are modified to enhance
heat transfer.

The

heat transfer performances of such

multilayered honeycomb microchannel heat sink is
experimentally investigated at various working
conditions.

The

results show that the heat sink design provides

a good choice for electronic products cooling
applications.

2. Design and experimental setup :

 The

Fig.1 shows prototype structure of the

multilayer honeycomb heat sink.

It

is built up by stacking several flat thin

rectangle metal plates with etched honeycomb
holes inside together to form the staggered
fluid flow passage channels.

Each

of the metal plates has the same size of

40mm length and 20mm width and 0.2mm
thickness.

In

order to keep tight connecting between two

layers, there is a 2mm wide seal region left
around the perimeter of the metal plate with

 Each

honeycomb holes also has the same

dimension of cell excircle diameter of 2.27mm.

By

rotating one plate clockwise 1800 angle and

bonded with the other one, the honeycomb
holes are divided by cell fins to form the
serpentine fluid flow channels in the direction
of normal layer plane, as showed in Fig.2.

The

heat sink core comes into being just by

stacking the multilayered such honeycomb
microchannel plates together.

 High

thermal conductivity metal materials

are widely used in heat transfer applications
for rapid heat dissipating speed.

In

current application, brass is used to

fabricate the honeycomb microchannel heat
sink.

The

shapes and dimensions of the

microchannel plates are well controlled by
the chemical etching technologies.

sample of fabricated honeycomb microchannel

plate is showed in Fig.3.

The metal parts are produced through chemical

corrosion of the unprotected metal material.

Eight

pieces of such brass plates are bonded

together to form the inside part of the heat sink.

The

container which installation the honeycomb

microchannel structure is also made by brass.

cover plate with inlet/outlet pipe with 2mm inner

diameter is bonded to the top of the channels
using miniature o- rings for fluidic seal.

 The

experimental apparatus used in this

study is illustrated in Fig.4.
The cooling system contains 4 main
components: a microchannel heat sink, a
micropump, a fluid tank and a small heat
rejecter with a fan.
Water is driven into the heat sink device
through an inlet by a micropump.
The fluid is heated and its temperature
increases after flowing out the heat sink
device.
Then the heated fluid enters into the heat
rejecter to dissipate the absorbed heat into
the external environment.

 The

cooled water will be delivered into the water

tank to insure that the fluid enter the micropump
is in liquid phase to keep the micropump properly
work.
From the low outlet of the water tank, the cooled
fluid is then pumped back into the heat sink, thus
forming a closed-loop flow system.
The flow rate is controlled by adjusting the input
voltage of micropump.
In the experiment, temperature is the main
parameter for system evaluation, and it is directly
measured by T-type thermocouples (Cu-CuNi).
Both inlet/outlet water temperature and the
heated substrate temperature of heat sink are
measured and recorded by a data acquisition
system (Keithley 2700).

 The

uncertainty of temperature measurement of

T-Type thermocouples is +/- 0.2 K after calibration.
The input heating power is controlled by the
heating system, which is connected to a power
supply with an adjustable AC voltage to provide
electrical power to the device.
The uncertainty of the heating power
measurement of the powermeter is +/- 2W.
The input voltage and current of the micropump
are measured with the voltage meter of +/- 1V
uncertainty and the current meter of +/- 0.1A
uncertainty respectively.
During the measurement, the pump as well as the
power source, is set to maintain a desired output
to produce a constant flow rate at a steady state.

3. Results and Discussions :

During

the experiments, the steady state total

heat transfer rate Q removed by water and the
heat flux q at the substrate of the
microchannel heat sink removed by water,
respectively, is given by:

Where

m is the total mass flow rate, Cp is the

specific heat of the fluid, and T is the
temperature change.

 The

temperature change is determined from the

measured inlet and exit temperatures, and A is
the area of the substrate of the microchannel
heat sink.

In

order to evaluate the cooling system pressure

drop, the power consumption of the micropump
P is also important and is determined by the
product of input voltage V and the input current
I
PV=I
(3)
Experiments and analysis on the microchannel
heat sink integrated with cooling system were
presented under various operation conditions to
evaluate the system thermal performance.

 Fig.5

showed the relation between heat sink substrate

temperatures and flow rates under the same input
heating power 80W.
In all tests, the heat sink inlet water temperature was
kept in 21.2o C
The flow rate was varied.
When pump flow rate increased, heat transfer
coefficient of the multilayered honeycomb
microchannel heat sink would increased, thus the
heat from power intensifier would be taken out more
efficaciously.
However, it should be notified that with the pump
flow rate increasing, the micropump would consume
more power, which would increase the operation cost.
In real application, there should be some trade-off in
design between the heat transfer efficiency and the
power consumption.

 Tests

were also conducted at various input heating

powers under the same flow rate of 297ml/min.
The tests were initially started on the heating
power of 80W, and then stepped up to 90W, 100W,
110W, 120W, 130W and 140W.
From Fig.6, It could be seen that the profiles of heat
sink substrate and outlet temperatures increased
with the increase of input heating power.
When the input heating power increased to 140W,
the measured inlet water fluid temperature was
21.5oC, outlet temperature was 27.9 oC , and the
substrate temperature of the heat sink arose to
61.9. o C which was safe for electronic chips
normally working.
In this case, the total heat flux q effectively
removed by water was 15.7W/cm2 according to
Equation (3).

4. Conclusions :
As

electronic products become faster and

incorporate greater functionality, they are also
shrinking in size and weight, with continuing
pressures for cost reduction. Heat removal has
become one of the key issues in electronic products
design.

New

types of compact heat exchangers need to be

developed to meet the thermal management
challenges.

By

stacking multilayered flat thin rectangular plates

with a number of regular honeycomb cells etched
inside, the well designed staggered fluid flow
channels are formed to enhance heat transfer.

 For

the cooling system with the new type

design heat sink, experimental
investigations were conducted under
different flow rates and input heating
powers.

The

heat power density of 15.7W/cm2 can

effectively removed with a substrate
temperature rise of 61.9o C under 2.4W
pump power.

The

heat sink design provides a good choice

for electronic products cooling applications.

5. References :
[1] Yonglu Liu, Xiaobing Luo, Wei liu and Zhifeng
Huang,
Thermal performance of the multilayered honeycomb
microchannel heat sink.
[2] Tuckerman, D.B., and Pease, R.F., "High
Performance Heat Sinking for VLSI," IEEE Electron
Device Letters, EDL-2, 5, 1981, pp. 126-129.
[3] T.J.Lu, Heat transfer efficiency of metal
honeycombs, Int. J. Heatand Mass Transfer, vol.42,
pp.2031-2040, 1999.
[4] B.M. Dempsey, S. Eisele and D.L. McDowell, Heat
sink applications of extruded metal honeycombs, Int.
J. Heat Mass Transfer, vol. 48, pp.527-535, 2005.