Natural Convection Heat Transfer of Annular Metal Porous Medium Heat Sink of LED

摘要

This study used metal porous medium heat sink to replace traditional cooling fins to form a high performance LED cooling system. The metal foamed material has high permeability and cooling area as large as several times of that of traditional fins. With a proper configuration design, it can improve the heat transfer capability of natural convection effectively. This study experimentally investigated the natural convection heat transfer characteristics of the annular metal foamed material, and determined the optimal configuration. The experimental results showed that 1) the heat transfer coefficient (h) increased with ΔT; 2) the (h) decreased as PPI (pores per inch) increased when the thickness (t) of the annular metal foams equaled 5 mm, but the (h) increased as PPI increased when t=11 and 14.5 mm; 3) the (h) increased and then decreased as (t) increased, and there was better heat transfer effect when t=11 mm as shown in the experimental data.