• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.586-591
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• 2015

This study discusses numerically-explored thermal performances of hybrid fin heat sinks (HF HSs) for lightweight thermal management of LED modules under natural convection. A hollow hybrid fin heat sink (HHF HS) and a solid hybrid fin heat sink (SHF HS) are proposed as HF HSs. A 3-D CFD analysis has been carefully conducted to obtain reliable numerical results. The 3-D CFD study investigates the effects of both fin spacing and an internal channel diameter on performances of the HHF HS and the SHF HS. The study results show that the mass-based thermal resistance of the HHF HS is 20~32% smaller compared with the pin fin heat sink (PF HS). The results also show that the mass-based thermal resistance of the HHF HS decreases with the increase of the channel diameter. These results are mainly due to coupled effects of the mass reduction and heat pumping through an internal channel. Considerably superior mass-based thermal performances of the HHF HS to the conventional PF HS suggest the feasible application for the lightweight thermal management of the LED modules under natural convection.