Numerical simulation and experimental investigation on heat transfer and hydraulic characteristics of rectangular microchannel heat sinks using high thermal conductivity diamond/copper composites

Abstract

To solve the overheating problem during the operation of integrated devices, a rectangular microchannel heat sink (MCHS) was prepared using high thermal conductivity diamond/copper composite materials in this study. The thermal and hydraulic characteristics of the MCHS with different heat sink materials, different channel numbers and flow velocities were investigated by numerical simulations and experiments. The results show that an increase in channel number significantly improves the heat exchange performance of the MCHS. The 7-channel diamond/copper MCHS has the best heat exchange performance with a max Nusselt number of 29.7. At a heat flux of 400 W/cm², the thermal resistance of the MCHS is merely 0.119 K/W, and the operating temperature of the heat source is less than 80 °C. Further experimental studies show that diamond/copper MCHS reduces the temperature of a 100 °C heating plate by 40.1 °C, which is below the operating temperature limit of the chip. This study shows that the diamond/copper MCHS has broad application prospects for efficient heat dissipation in integrated circuits.