Abstract
Current article aims to numerically scrutinize and compare the forced convection in three different configurations of a 3D heat sink. Two models of porous were designed aiming to evaluate the effects of nanomaterial and metallic foam to the conventional solid heat sink on thermal performance. In these two models, porous material with the same volume fraction was located in two different positions to have different contact areas with the solid. MWCNT-Fe3O4 hybrid nanofluid has been utilized as coolant working fluid. Validations were carried out in the critical case of 47 W for pure water through comparison with previous experimental work in which the whole surface of the CPU is covered with porous media. According to the results, at the constant Reynolds number, the heat sinks, which are consist of metallic foam, have better cooling performance and are able to decrease the surface temperature of heat sink more.
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•Microchannel heat sink performance has been studied.•Multi-wall carbon nanotube-Fe3O4 hybrid nanofluid has been utilized.•Validations were carried out with comparison with previous experimental article.•The thermal resistance of model 2 is 2% lower than that of model 1.