Effect due to a series of heat sinks on component temperatures

It is common practice to employ a small heat sink for hot components in order to maintain the appropriate component temperature. Extensive studies of heat sink performance have been made either experimentally or numerically. However, most of those investigations are limited to the case with a single component alone on a printed circuit board (PCB). In practical applications, the condition with a single component on the board never exists. The temperature of a given component is always affected by surrounding components. In some cases, several hot components may be placed next to each other, and each individual component may also require a heat sink to achieve a desired temperature. The effects of nearby components, with or without heat sinks, on each other over a PCB has never been examined. The purpose of this study is use of 3D CFD code to investigate the thermal performance of a series of heat sinks on a group of components which are placed together on a printed circuit board