Cooling of Electronics with Phase Change Materials

This paper deals with phase change materials (PCMs), used in conjunction with thermal conductivity enhancer (TCE), as means of thermal management of electronic systems. This work was motivated by the need for short term thermal management of high packing density equipments (such as in avionics). Eicosane is used as PCM, while aluminium pin or plate fins are used as TCE. The test section considered in all cases is 42 x 42 mm square base with TCE height of 25 mm. An electronic heater producing 4, 6 and 8 W was used to simulate the heat generation of electronic chips. Various volumetric percentages of TCE in the conglomerate of PCM and TCE were considered, namely, 0, 2, 8, 18 and 27%. The case with 8% volumetric percentage of TCE was found to have the best thermal performance. A numerical model was developed to enable interpretation of experimental results and to perform parametric studies.