Numerical Investigation of Convective Heat Transfer in Pin Fin Type Heat Sink used for Led Application by using CFD

An analysis of the effect of orientation on the heat transfer in a scaled model pin fin heat sink utilized in Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting has been carried out using numerical method. The present study involves natural convective heat transfer that takes place in particular heat sink. A pin fin type heat sink has been studied since they are widely used in LED lighting systems which in turn are facing a lot of thermal challenges when they are integrated with high power lighting system. The numerical study is carried out using ANSYS FLUENT software package. The modeling and meshing has been generated using ANSYS GAMBIT v.2.3.16 module which one later imported into ANSYS FLUENT v.6.3.26 module for analysis. In order to carry out a detailed analysis various parametric studies are conducted for different LED power wattages such as 10 W considering different orientations obtained by changing the angles from 0° to 45° has been carried out. From the results it can be concluded that the dissipation of heat in the heat sink is dependent on the orientation of the heat sink. The particular study will be useful to optimize the heat sink used in the LED lighting system. KeywordsLight Emitting Diode (LED), ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS GAMBIT software, Heat sink