Thermal performance of heat sink with fluid pockets for high power light emitting diode

Abstract

In this study, a novel heat sink which has many fluid pockets in its base was designed and fabricated. An experimental setup was built to study the heat transfer characteristics of the novel heat sink while cooling a high-power light emitting diode (LED). In this investigation, an attempt has been made to increase the heat transfer rate by adopting passive cooling. This study reports the effect of parameters such as fill ratio, orientation, type of cooling liquid, and the geometry of fluid pockets on the junction temperature of
the LED. The fluid pockets were filled with various heat transfer fluids on % Vol basis. Parameters were optimised for the optimal thermal performance of the heat sink. To compare, the novel heat sink was found to record temperatures at least 19% lesser than a
conventional heat sink of the same configurations. The experimental results indicated that the novel heat sink acts as an economical supplement for effective heat transfer and that liquid cooling is a powerful technique for heat dissipation of high power LEDs.
Introducing the fluid pockets in heat sinks is feasible and useful for outdoor street light applications.