Forced convection in enhanced surfaces: heat transfer and pressure drop measurements.

High heat flux dissipators and compact heat sinks are more and more demanded in many different applications where an efficient heat transfer would allow the overcoming of the air cooling limits. Recently, different enhanced surfaces such as cellular structure materials have been proposed as possible substitutes of traditional finned surfaces during air flow, when stiffness and strength are necessary. Del Col et al. [1] have critically analyzed these enhanced surfaces that present high heat transfer area per unit of volume and high pressure drop when compared to traditional finned surfaces. Wen et al. [2] have measured the heat transfer behaviour of different metal honeycomb structures; in this work some comparisons between these new enhanced surfaces and an optimized finned heat sink are reported. This paper also presents a new experimental test rig that has been built at the Dipartimento of Fisica Tecnica of the University of Padova in order to investigate the heat transfer behaviour of different enhanced surfaces during single phase air flow. This new test equipment represents a valid support for testing, designing and developing of new enhanced heat transfer surfaces for air cooling applications.