Numerical simulation and optimization of turbulent flows through perforated circular pin fin heat sinks

In this study, the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of turbulent forced convection of air flow through perforated circular pin fin heat sinks with constant heat flux are investigated numerically. Circular perforated pin fins are shown to have 8% larger averaged Nusselt numbers than the corresponding solid pin cases. In addition, after the validation of the numerical results, the numerical optimization of this problem is also presented by using the response surface methodology (RSM) coupled with genetic algorithm (GA). The difference between the optimal thermal performance factor (eta) which is calculated by regression function and obtained by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is less than 2%, and the numerical optimization shows that the enhancement of the objective function (eta) can achieve 34%.