Computational Fluid Dynamics for Effects of Coolants on On-chip Cooling Capability with Carbon Nanotube Micro-fin Architectures

Journal article, 2009

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have shown a broad promising application in high mechanical strength and electronic structure. In this work, the effects of coolants on heat transfer capability of on-chip cooling with CNTs Micro-fin Architectures was studied, and the two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations have been done for a series of material parameters of coolants in this paper. The influences of thermal conductivity, density, specific heat and viscosity on cooling have been obtained in the case studies. The results demonstrate that pressure drop between the inlet and outlet of the cooling device is dependent on coolant's density and viscosity. Consequently, it will be necessary to find out a good balance between heat transfer capability and pressure drop. The simulation results also indicate that the heat sink capability will be better if there are more fin rows in the microchannel.