Heat sink design for optimal thermal management

Increasing power density in power electronics applications requires optimum design of the cooling system. Finding the optimum design by manufacturing prototypes is often difficult, time consuming and expensive due to the large number of variable parameters. The choice of the optimal heat sink-fan combination can be assisted by a number of different numerical simulation methods. In a case study of a typical heat sink-fan combination in a welding machine, a comparison is presented between a full CFD-simulation and an optimization routine, embedded in a Matlab graphical user interface. After a short review of the physical background and the underlying mathematical algorithm, the advantages and disadvantages/drawbacks are detailed.