Heat transfer augmentation of porous media (metallic foam) and phase change material based heat sink with variable heat generations: An experimental evaluation

The operation of electronic devices generates a significant amount of heat. Thermal management is critical for the safe operation and reliability of these machines. In the present experimental research, various configurations of the phase change material (PCM) based heat sink is analyzed with aim of thermal management of electronic particularly computer chips. Nickel foam is employed with paraffin wax because nickel foam is less prompted to latent heat reduction when integrated with PCM. The three-dimensional porous structure of nickel foam drastically enhances the surface area subjected to heat flow. Results revealed that nickel foam impregnated with PCM decreased base temperature up to 25% in comparison to the sink having no PCM as well as foam. Three critical temperatures (45-65⁰C) are also analyzed for PCM volume fractions ranging 0.6–0.8. It was noticed that PCM fraction 0.8 integrated with nickel foam enhanced the operation time of the sink by 4 times. Temperature profiles demonstrated that PCM-foam based sinks obstructed the sudden upsurge of temperature with no considerable cost.