A numerical investigation and parametric study of cooling an array of multiple protruding heat sources by a laminar slot air jet

The present article reports on the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics associated with cooling an in-line array of discrete protruding heated blocks in a channel by using a single laminar slot air jet. Numerical experiments have been carried out for different values of jet Reynolds number, channel height, slot width, spacing between blocks, block height, and block thermal conductivity. The effects of variation of these parameters are detailed to illustrate important fundamental and practical results that are relevant to the thermal management of electronic packages. In general, the effective cooling of blocks has been observed to increase with the increase of Reynolds number and the decrease of channel height. Heat transfer rates are enhanced for shorter and widely spaced heated blocks. Circulation cells that may appear on the top surface of the downstream blocks have been shown to decrease the value of Nusselt number for these blocks. The values of surface averaged Nusselt number attain their maximum at the block just underneath the impinging air jet, decrease for the downstream blocks, and approximately reach a constant value after the third block. Useful design correlations have been obtained for the mean Nusselt number for the heated blocks underneath and downstream the impinging jet. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.