Design Considerations for Heat Spreader in High Heat Flux Systems

Over the last several years, there has been a strong emphasis on developing heat sinks for high heat flux systems. Consequently new materials are being developed and novel thermal transport mechanisms are being investigated. Some of the novel materials are composites with thermal conductivity exceeding 500 W/mK. In this paper we examine the effect of very high thermal conductivity on the heat spreader performance with reference to high convective heat fluxes. It is shown that the thermal characteristics at high heat fluxes increases the importance of optimization of the heat spreader resistance in the design of the heat sink.