Yidong Ma and Gerald W. Recktenwald.
Presented at the 1993 ASME International Electronics Packaging Conference, 29 September - 2 October 1993, Binghampton, NY.
Appears in Advances in Electronic Packaging 1993, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, EEP-Vol. 4-2, P.A. Engel, and W.T. Chen (eds.), pp. 609-618.
The convective heat transfer from an array of heated blocks that simulate electronic devices is predicted with a simplified numerical model. A control-volume finite difference technique is used to solve the three-dimensional energy equation in the domain occupied by the heated blocks and the fluid flowing around the blocks. Rather than also solve the three-dimensional momentum and continuity equations for the fluid, simple assumptions for the fluid velocity profile are used to construct the convection-diffusion coefficients that appear in the discrete form of the energy equation. These assumptions are made to speed the numerical solution so that the model will be feasible for routine design use. The accuracy of the procedure is tested by comparison to experimental results obtained for arrays of flush and protruding heaters for both laminar and turbulent flow. The results show that these simplifications yield reasonable predictions that do not rely on specification of a heat transfer coefficient. Unfortunately, since the quantitative accuracy of the model depends on the assumed shape of the velocity profile, the model is not yet capable of being used as a universal design tool.
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