Impact of height and secondary flow patterns of circle, square and triangle shaped pin fins on microchannel heat sinks performance

The geometric design of pin fins significantly impacts the thermal and hydraulic performance of microchannel heat sinks (MCHSs). This study, which uses Ansys Fluent, investigates the effect of pin fin height (full height and half height) and shape (circular, square, triangular) on the pressure drop, temperature distribution, velocity fields, Nusselt number, and thermal efficiency for different Reynolds numbers. Six different configurations were studied. It has been concluded that circular pin fins have the least pressure drop, whereas square fins have maximum resistance. While full-height fins gather more thermal energy, half-height fins outperformed these both thermally and hydraulically, owing to increased secondary cooling flows and blockage effects reduction. The half-height circular pin fin was identified as the optimum design being able to achieve a high heat transfer coefficient with a low hydrodynamic resistance. The results of this analysis could provide beneficial guidelines for the optimization of the pin fin geometry in high-performance thermal management applications.