INTRODUCTION:

Cooling of electronic components and mechanical components is backbone to operate successfully

and potentially for what purpose these are made. Electronics component become active during

passage of current, and they become potential site for excessive heating, since current flow through

a resistance is accompanied by heat generation. Persistent miniaturization of electronics system

leads to increase the heat generation per unit volume and attend with rising temperature. Lot of

failure mechanism in electronic devices such as inter metallic growth, metal migration, and void

formation, accelerated as a result of thermal effect. Beside the above damage, excess temperature

increase the electron movement within semiconductor, and as a by-product signal noise prevail

within the device. The failure rate of electronics component increase exponentially with

temperature. Also, uneven temperature variation within circuit boards is responsible for thermal

stresses in the solders joints of electronic components. The bellow figure depict the development

trends of semiconductor technology for current & upcoming year , also necessity of temperature

control for longer life of electronics components.

Fig. 1. Projections of maximum heat flux and power dissipation for microprocessor chips.

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Fig. 2. The 2006 ITRS projections of chip size, transistor density and physical gate length of

high-performance microprocessor chips

Fig. 3. Temperature dependence of failure rate of digital devices

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Therefore, the unwanted heat removals from electronic devices are very much important for safe,

efficient and reliable operation otherwise jeopardizes its safety and reliability. Hence, heat sinks

are the best choice to overcome the above challenge, to cool the electronic gadgets and operate

continuously within a certain temperature limits.

Currently, thermal management plays crucial contribution to control electronics components

temperature within safe limit and incorporate new solution for hi-tech electronics devices. Heat

transfer augmentation is the prime requirement of any thermal management system. Heat is transit

to surrounding by three modes such as conduction, convection and radiation. At low temperature

conduction & convection is dominant compare to radiative heat transfer. Heat dissipation take

place to the surrounding fluid by means of convection. Therefore, convective heat transfer

enhancement is major issues most of the thermal management solution. Newton laws of cooling

stated the rate of convective heat dissipation from a surface to ambient fluid due to temperature

difference. According to Newton’ law of cooling,

Q=h*A*(Tsystem- Tambient)

Where, Q is net heat transfer rate ,h is heat transfer coefficient dependant on type of convection

mode, (Tsystem – Tambient ) be temperature differences.

The rate of convective heat transfer is function of heat transfer coefficient (h), surface area (A) and

temperature difference (Tsystem- Tambient). Since heat transfer coefficient cannot independently

controlled, heat transfer augmentation may be achieved by increasing and optimizing the surface

area. The easiest way to increase the surface area by attaching fins to a base plate.

On the geometry basis lots of fins such as (plate fin, pin fin, triangular fins etc) are used in several

applications. Among of them pin fin is very efficient compare to other.

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However increase the surface area may have some drawback, thus proper design of fins is very

important consideration for heat transfer enhancement. Attaching the fins does increase the surface

area, but it also increases the resistance to the flow of air. The heat transfer coefficient based on

base area of fins array may be less than that of the base plate. If decrease of heat transfer coefficient

is more than that increase of surface area, the total heat transfer rate will decrease. Therefore,

enhancement option must be carefully judged. The shape and size of the fin must be optimized

under specific application.

Heat is transported from a surface by two ways such as active and passive cooling. In active cooling

fluid is moved over the surface by means of some external agencies such as fan , pump or blower

and heat is carried away from the surface. This type of cooling known as forced convection. Forced

convection is suitable for medium or large heat flux application. Currently lots cooling

technologies have developed to fulfill the demand of hi-tech electronics cooling in various sector

such as Thermosyphon cooling, spray cooling , jet impingement cooling, Heat pipe, Micro-

channel cooling etc. Though, passive cooling techniques have less heat transport ability compared

to active because in that process fluid motion set up naturally due to buoyancy or density gradient

in presence of gravity. Thus fluid motion is low compare active cooling and respective heat transfer

coefficient is also less. The passive cooling technique is generally known as natural convective

cooling. Natural convective cooling has some inherent advantages that make it widely popular for

low or medium scale heat flux application. Natural convective cooling system design is very

simple and economics, absence of moving component make it noise free and highly reliable and

required less maintenance. The most common method to enhance heat transfer from a surface to

air by attaching pin fins on the surface.

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They can be placed on the plane surfaces, tubes, or other geometries. In applications found in

cooling of electronic equipment, pin fins are made of highly conducting materials such as copper

or aluminum. They can be cast into fin arrays, which are attached to heated surfaces from which

they conduct energy to the surrounding fluid. Industrial experience has shown that for the same

surface area, pin fins can transfer considerably more energy than plate fins. Therefore proper pin

fin design is very important for augmentation of free convection heat dissipation. Lots of

investigation has done to enhance free convection heat transfer from solid pin fin or solid pin fins

heat sink and optimize its geometry in various applications. Some study showed heat transfer from

hollow fin is comparable to solid fin, even higher heat dissipation rate with respect to solid.

Hollow pin fin is cylindrical extended surface with concentric hole attach on base plate. Thus free

convective heat transfer enhancement from hollow pin fin is a prime importance in the field of

thermal management. Lots of parameters like fin radius, height, hole diameter, base temperature,

fin material etc are affect the heat transfer. Therefore optimum combination of these parameter is

very much vital to design pin fins in a specific application. This report investigates free convective

heat transfer performance of a solid and hollow pin fin standing on horizontal base experimentally

and analyzes the effect of hole.

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Objective of the project:
This project is dedicated to find the natural convective heat transfer performance of a solid and
hollow fin stands vertically on horizontal base. At first, heat transfer performance of solid fin is
determined experimentally with different inputs and then same is calculated for hollow fin. Here
only input is heat rate at the base such that base temperature limit should be bellow 100 ℃ which
is safe limiting temperature most of the electronics devices. The test result is compared with
numerically. Numerical analysis have done by COMSOL software .This single fin heat transfer
analysis may be utilise to predict the performance of heat sink which is equipped with multiple
fins.

BASIC THEORY:
Heat transfer through extended surface comes into play due to non ability of enhancing heat
transfer coefficient in convection heat transfer.
According to Newton’s law of cooling ,

Q=h*A*(Ts-Tambient)

Where , Q be heat transfer rate

A be surface area
h be coefficient of heat transfer

As it is difficult to increase heat transfer coefficient but it will be easy enough enlarging
surface area with some innovative optimal design. Forced and free convection heat transfer
requires different type of extended surface. Surfaces used for forced convection cannot be used for
free convection because pressure difference required for forced convection generated by external
means is quite higher than that of the case in free convection evolved due to buoyancy effect.

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 So, it is necessary to evaluate mathematical expression for heat transfer through extended
surface or fin to estimate the relation between various parameters such as conductivity of fin
material, coefficient of heat transfer, surface area, and perimeter of geometry of extended surface.
Now we should take one dimension heat transfer concept through the arbitrary chosen
extended surface, such as cylindrical fin.
Now we will do energy balance on small control volume of extended surface so that there
is steady state achieved.
By Energy balance,

Qin by conduction through perpendicular surface= Qout by convection by lateral surface

Where,

By above solving second order differential equation imposed with some various boundary
conditions to reach the proper temperature distribution throughout the fin length.One boundary
condition is common for all that is specified base temperature and other boundary condition may
be one of these followings: a) Infinitely long fin, b) Adiabatic fin tip, c) convective fin tip, and d)
specified fin tip temperature.

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 Now consider the various boundary conditions together with temperature distribution and
heat transfer formulas.

A) Infinitely long fin

At x tends to infinity (T-Tamb) approaches zero.
· Temperature Distribution--

· Heat transfer rate:

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B) Adiabatic fin tip
At x=L space derivative of Temperature difference becomes zero that is

· Temperature Distribution:

· Heat Transfer:

C) Convective fin tip or combined convective and radiative

In this case due to complex mathematical formula all formulae used in adiabatic
fin tip can be replaced by corrected fin length to convert a convective fin tip into insulated
one.
Corrected fin length -

Where , Lc= corrected fin length , L = fin length ,Ac= cross section of fin, P = perimeter of fin.

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D) Specified fin tip temperature
At x=L , Ttip= T

· Temperature distribution: =

· Heat transfer= Q =

These are all end condition involves in fin analysis. But in this analysis the value of heat
transfer coefficient is predetermined. This does not consider the geometry involved , fluid
properties , flow kinematics and dynamic in the given problem. So it is necessary to have numerical
study under the observed boundary condition and geometry involved in the analysis.

Now this is important to have a basic idea of natural convection heat transfer. The
convection heat transfer coefficient is a strong function of velocity: the higher the velocity, the
higher the convection heat transfer coefficient. The fluid velocities associated with natural
convection are low, typically less than 1 m/s. Therefore, the heat transfer coefficients encountered
in natural convection are usually much lower than those encountered in forced convection.
In a gravitational field, there is a net force that pushes upward a light fluid placed in a
heavier fluid. The upward force exerted by a fluid on a body completely or partially immersed in
it is called the buoyancy force. The magnitude of the buoyancy force is equal to the weight of the
fluid displaced by the body.

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 In heat transfer studies, the primary variable is temperature, and it is desirable to express
the net buoyancy force in terms of temperature differences. But this requires expressing the density
difference in terms of a temperature difference, which requires a knowledge of a property that
represents the variation of the density of a fluid with temperature at constant pressure.
The property that provides that information is the volume expansion coefficient (β).

In natural convection studies, the condition of the fluid sufficiently far from the hot or cold
surface is indicated by the subscript “infinity” to serve as a reminder that this is the value at a
distance where the presence of the surface is not felt. In such cases, the volume expansion
coefficient can be expressed approximately by replacing differential quantities by differences as

Where ῥ∞ is the density and T∞ is the temperature of the quiescent fluid away from the surface.

Note that a large value of β for a fluid means a large change in density with temperature,
and that the product β ΔT represents the fraction of volume change of a fluid that corresponds to a
temperature change ΔT at constant pressure. Also note that the buoyancy force is proportional to
the density difference, which is proportional to the temperature difference at constant pressure.
Therefore, the larger the temperature difference between the fluid adjacent to a hot (or cold) surface
and the fluid away from it, the larger the buoyancy force and the stronger the natural convection
currents, and thus the higher the heat transfer rate.

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Consequences of fluid motion in natural convection:
The magnitude of the natural convection heat transfer between a surface and a fluid is
directly related to the flow rate of the fluid. The higher the flow rate, the higher the heat transfer
rate. The flow rate in this case is established by the dynamic balance of buoyancy and friction.

It is also well known that whenever two bodies in contact (solid–solid, solid–fluid, or
fluid–fluid) move relative to each other, a friction force develops at the contact surface in the
direction opposite to that of the motion. This opposing force slows down the fluid and thus reduces
the flow rate of the fluid. Under steady conditions, the air flow rate driven by buoyancy is
established at the point where these two effects balance each other. The friction force increases as
more and more solid surfaces are introduced, seriously disrupting the fluid flow and heat transfer.
For that reason, heat sinks with closely spaced fins are not suitable for natural convection cooling.

Equation of motion and Grashof Number:

In natural convection as fluid motion is involve so energy equation must be coupled with continuity
and momentum equation. In our project as heat input is very low, it generates laminar flow regime
near the immediate surroundings. Hence our analysis is based on conjugate heat transfer with
laminar flow .

In above diagram we make out the variation of temperature

and velocity of fluid in the immediate surroundings of the
plate. This gives us an insight of boundary conditions of
countinuity, momentum and energy equations.

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Unlike forced convection, however, the fluid velocity is zero at the outer edge of the velocity
boundary layer as well as at the surface of the plate. This is expected since the fluid beyond the
boundary layer is motionless. Thus, the fluid velocity increases with distance from the surface,
reaches a maximum, and gradually decreases to zero at a distance sufficiently far from the surface.
At the surface, the fluid temperature is equal to the plate temperature, and gradually decreases to
the temperature of the surrounding fluid at a distance sufficiently far from the surface, as shown
in the figure. In the case of cold surfaces, the shape of the velocity and temperature profiles remains
the same but their direction is reversed.
So, here continuity equation for 2 dimentional heat transfer:

Momentum equation:

Energy equation:

This equations are not general one. This involves some assumption depending upon the geometry
of flow involve and boundary conditions.

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Concept of non-dimensionilzation
Nondimensional (or dimensionless) variables are defined as quantities that change or vary in the
problem, but have no dimensions; an example is angle of rotation, measured in degrees or radians
which are dimensionless units.

There are two key advantages of non-dimensionalization

First,
It increases our insight about the relationships between key parameters.

Second,
It reduces the number of parameters in the problem.

That is why we can easily predict the physical behavior of system with minimum number of
experiments.

In our problem if we do non dimensionalization of governing equations we can achieve

some well known non dimentional number like Reynolds Number, Prandtl Number, Grashof
Number etc.

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Grashof Number:
The governing equations of natural convection and the boundary conditions can be non-
dimensionalized by dividing all dependent and independent variables by suitable constant
quantities: all lengths by a characteristic length Lc , all velocities by an arbitrary reference velocity
V (which, from the definition of Reynolds number, is taken to be V= ReLv /Lc), and temperature
by a suitable temperature difference (which is taken to be Ts -T∞) as

where asterisks are used to denote non-dimensional variables. Substituting them into the
momentum equation and simplifying give

The dimensionless parameter in the brackets represents the natural convection effects, and is called
the Grashof number GrL ,

g = gravitational acceleration, m/s^2

β = coefficient of volume expansion, 1/K (β = 1/T for ideal gases)
Ts = temperature of the surface, °C
T∞ = temperature of the fluid sufficiently far from the surface, °C
Lc= characteristic length of the geometry, m
v = kinematic viscosity of the fluid, m^2/s

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Prandtl number:

The relative thickness of the velocity and the thermal boundary layers is best described by the
dimensionless parameter Prandtl number, defined as

The Prandtl numbers of gases are about 1, which indicates that both momentum and heat
dissipate through the fluid at about the same rate. Heat diffuses very quickly in liquid metals (Pr
<<1) and very slowly in oils (Pr >> 1) relative to momentum. Consequently the thermal boundary
layer is much thicker for liquid metals and much thinner for oils relative to the velocity boundary
layer.

Reynolds number:
The transition from laminar to turbulent flow depends on the surface geometry,surface roughness,
free-stream velocity, surface temperature, and type of fluid, among other things. After exhaustive
experiments in the 1880s, Osborn Reynolds discovered that the flow regime depends mainly on
the ratio of the inertia forces to viscous forces in the fluid. This ratio is called the Reynolds
number, which is a dimensionless quantity, and is expressed for external flow
As,

Where V is the upstream velocity (equivalent to the free-stream velocity u∞ for a flat plate), Lc is

the characteristic length of the geometry, and is the Kinematic viscosity of the fluid.

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Nusselt Number(Nu) :
The Nusselt number is named after Wilhelm Nusselt, who made significant contributions to
convective heat transfer in the first half of the twentieth century, and it is viewed as the
dimensionless convection heat transfer coefficient.
Nusselt number is the ratio of convection heat transfer and conduction heat transfer. By
taking their ratio,

which is the Nusselt number. Therefore, the Nusselt number represents the enhancement
of heat transfer through a fluid layer as a result of convection relative to conduction across the
same fluid layer. The larger the Nusselt number, the more effective the convection. A Nusselt
number of (Nu=1) for a fluid layer represents heat transfer across the layer by pure conduction.
Heat transfer by convection in general a combination of advection and conduction. so Nusselt
number is greater than one in case of convection whether it is conduction or convection.

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Relative effects of non-dimensional number in flow regime:

It is well known fact that the flow regime in forced convection is governed by the
dimensionless Reynolds number, which represents the ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces
acting on the fluid. The flow regime in natural convection is governed by the dimensionless
Grashof number, which represents the ratio of the buoyancy force to the viscous force acting on
the fluid.
Value of Reynolds number signifies whether a forced flow is laminar or turbulent in
the same way Grashof number helps us to predict whether a free flow is laminar or turbulent.

Relation between Nusselt number and Rayleigh Number:

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Important Corelations used in free convection heat transfer:

Though these correlations are available in literature, but these are limited to these simple
geometries. So we cannot use them conveniently in our analysis. Hence we prefer numerical
analysis with the help of computer to solve our theoretical part of this project.
Radiation heat transfer also occurs along with this free convection, so we must
consider both mode of heat transfer in calculation. Otherwise erroneous results, which will be
generated, will not be acceptable.

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Experimental setup and preparation
Installation Setup:-

The project was on heat transfer through a heat sink. The heat sink was made of aluminium, which
was manufactured by casting. The base plate has a length of 159.5 mm, width of 79 mm and
thickness of 65 mm. the pin fin diameter is 21 mm. The heat sink consists of a base plate and a pin
fin which are manufactured as a single unit.

To produce heat a heater coil was arranged. The coil was obtained from an old household iron.
The coil is capable to produce 750 watts of heat energy per second, when connected to an
alternating current(A.C.) supply of 220 volts. There are insulators that are sandwiched on the
heater coil of the iron.

20
Two thin plates of aluminium, of the same dimension as the heater coil are cut from a lid of a
household utensil. The heater coil and the thin aluminium plates were made of same dimensions.
The dimensions are, length 159.5 mm , width 79 mm and thickness 65 mm.

The heater coil, insulator are sandwiched between the two thin aluminium plates. That setup was
again sandwiched between the thin aluminium plates.

The base plate containing the pin fin was kept at the top of thin plate which corresponds to the the
top side of the heater coil. That forms the complete heat sink setup.

To produce the desired heat energy per second a dimmerstat is employed.

Dimmerstat is a controlling device used in electrical circuits. Generally it contains resistance coils
or induction coils that serves as a potentiometer or autotransformer.

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Dimmerstat is used to control the output voltage to an electrical circuit. There is a nob or regulator
that is used to control the output voltage and accordingly the output current was obtained
automatically.

The utensils are melted in an iron crucible. The iron crucible was prepared from a thin sheet of
mild steel. First a small piece of thin sheet of steel is cut from the large part. After that the sides
of the crucible are made by, bending the thin sheets at the desired places. The edges of the sides
of the crucible are arc welded by alternating-current-transformer (A.C.) welding

Old scrap household utensils made of aluminium are used to produce the heat sink by melting. By
the help of a cutter the aluminium utensils are cut into small pieces to fulfill the desired weight of
the casting, gating system and some losses. These small pieces of aluminium are kept inside the
iron crucible.

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An induction furnace is employed to melt the scrap utensils made of aluminium to produce molten
alumnium. The induction furnace has a nob by which we can set the temperature upto which any
object can be heated,that is present inside the induction furnace. The maximum temperature upto
which any object can be heated is 1000 0C.

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The iron crucible containing the small pieces of aluminium is introduced into the induction
furnace.

Moulding flask was made of wood. The wood was obtained from rejected woods. By the help of
a saw the required dimension of wood used for making the flasks is cut out. The pattern was also
made of wood, which was obtained in the same way. A bottom board was also cut out from the
rejected woods. The bottom board was placed on the floor. The pattern was rubbed on all its sides
by a sand paper, so that the casting produced has good surface finish. The pattern was placed on
the bottom board.

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Fine particles of river sand was collected by the help of sieve, from a stock of river sand having
various sizes of particles . Fine particles of moulding sand gives good surface finish and also less
defects.

Fine particles of river sand and sodium bentonite clay in the ratio of 7:3 are thoroughly mixed.

Water in very minute amounts was sprayed on the mixture and the mixture was agitated, to produce
the cohesiveness property of the moulding sand.

The mixing of the moulding sand was done until cohesiveness appear for the entire moulding
sand. The mixing of moulding sand, bentonite and water were done manually by hand.

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Sodium bentonite clay was used as a binder. Water was used to activate the clay and provide
plasticity to the sand, so that it can be easily formed into any shape. Sodium Bentonite has the
molecular formula as Al2H2 Na2O13 Si4. The molecular weight of Sodium Bentonite is 422.286
g/mol.

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Prepared moulding sand was poured in small amounts inside the drag flask above the pattern.

Manual ramming was done with cylindrical jobs of wood and iron. Perfect ramming was done to
ensure that no hollow cavities are formed inside the sand mould. Good ramming is necessary to
hold the moulding sand intact inside the flask, so that the sand does not fall off when the flasks are
made upside-down. Good ramming also ensures preservation of the shape of the mould cavity.

After completely filling the drag flask the excess sand is removed by the help of a thin small plate
of steel. The drag flask was made upside-down. The pattern of wood was visible then.

The cope flask perfectly aligned with the drag flask was kept above the drag flask. Again moulding
sand was sprinkled inside the cope flask and rammed. In this way the entire cope flask was filled
with moulding sand. After completely filling the cope flask the cope flask was raised and kept
aside.

The wood pattern was removed from the drag flask carefully so that the mould cavity does not get
distorted. Sprue base well and runner was made in the drag flask on the top side. Pouring basin,
sprue and riser are made in the cope flask by the help of a wooden cylindrical job. The avoid
complexity the diameter of the sprue and riser were kept same. The sprue was straight. The riser
was at the top and was an open riser that was formed into the pin fin.

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A sand mould was prepared which has a mould cavity of the dimension of the base plate and the
pin fin integrated together.

For the ease of manufacturing, the riser was located at the middle of the base plate that acts like
an open riser. The riser after solidification served as the pin fin.

Molten aluminium was prepared in the induction furnace from the scrap household aluminium
utensils. The nob of the induction furnace was set to around 762 0C which was sufficient for
melting aluminium. The melting point of aluminium is 660 0C. To ensure complete melting of the
aluminium pieces the temperature was set to 762 0C.

The induction furnace took around 21/2 to 3 hours to achieve the temperature. As the temperature
was achieved we were sure that the solid aluminium pieces had melted. The door of the induction
furnace was opened. With the help of a tong whose ends are in the shape of the beak of parrot, was
used to grip the iron crucible. A pair of gloves was wore to hold the tong. The iron crucible was
taken out of the induction furnace that contained molten aluminium. The molten aluminium shows
metallic lustre.

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Very cautiously the moltel aluminium was poured into the pouring basin. The pouring was
continued until the riser was completely filled. when the riser got filled, pouring was stopped.

29
The molten aluminium was allowed to solidify.

The pouring basing,sprue and runner were removed from the desired casting product by cutting
off with the help of a hand cutter.

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The base plate containing the pin fin almost at the center was formed. The pin fin and the base
plate were manufactured as a single unit without any discontinuities. This complete casting forms
the heat sink that was made of aluminium. After about 15 minutes the mould was broken to obtain
the casting. 15 minutes was provided to ensure complete solidification.

For providing insulation at the sides and bottom of the heat sink setup, wood was used. Wood was
used as an insulator as it is readily available, better than than many insulators, conventional one
and the most important is the thermal conductivity of wood is very low about 0.048 W/mK.

A base made of wood of length 251 mm, width 171 mm and thickness of 15 mm was used to
provide insulation at the bottom. The thicknesses of the wood that are present on the sides have a
thickness of 15 mm.

Four blocks of wood are cut from a rejected wood. The thickness of the four blocks and the base
wood are same. The four blocks and the base wood are rubbed by sand paper to make the surfaces
smooth, so as to enhance the insulation properties.
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That setup of heat sink and heater coil was placed on the base wood. The four blocks of desired
dimensions were placed at the sides of the heat sink and heater coil setup. The four blocks of wood
were fixed with the base wood by the help of screw, so that they can be disengaged according to
the requirement.

The base plate of the heat sink would get heated, which initiates the natural convection. The height
of the four wood blocks should be such that it coincides with the height of the setup, containing
the heat sink and heater coil. The heights were kept same so that natural convection can occur
without any hindrance.

32
The heat sink, two aluminium plates and the heater coil setup are properly aligned together. Two
holes were drilled in that setup, to tighten them together, so that there was no leakage or loss of
heat. That setup was tightened together by two nut-bolts.

Three K- type thermocouple thermometers were used to take the reading. Nine K-type thermocoule
thermometer temperature sensor wires containing probe were used, to take the temperatures at the
desired points in the setup.

33
Three K-type thermocouple thermometer temperature sensor probed wires were attached at the
bottom of the wooden base. These three K-type thermocouple thermometer temperature sensor
probed wires were fed into the first thermocouple thermometer.

Three K-type thermocouple thermometer temperature sensor probed wires were attached at the top
of the wooden base. These three K-type thermocouple thermometer temperature sensor probed
wires were fed into the second thermocouple thermometer.

34
Two K-type thermocoule thermometer temperature sensor probed wires were attched to the two
bolts, at the base of the heat sink and heater coil setup. These two K-type thermocouple
thermometer temperature sensor probed wires were fed into the third thermocouple thermometer.

One K-type thermocoule thermometer temperature sensor probed wire is left free. This wire was
used to measure the temperatures at the top of the base plate and of the pin fin at various points on
the pin fin.

35
This distinction was done to avoid ambiguity.

The input of the heater coil containing two wires, one phase other one neutral were connected to
the output of the dimmerstat. The dimmerstat is connected to the alternating current connection
having 220 volts and 32 amp. The dimmerstat was switched on and the knob was set to the desired
voltage that was fed to the heater coil.

This forms the complete setup.

The knob of the dimmerstat was turned to set to a particular voltage and accordingly the current
was set. These are the output voltage and current.

Five sets of reading were noted. Each set consists of various readings that were noted, which were
desired output voltage , output current and temperatures at various locations in the setup.

36
Result and discussion

80

75

solid fin
Base temperature degC

70

65

60

Hollow fin
55

50

45
4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Power input W

Above figure clearly shows the heat transfer performance of solid and hollow fin under natural
convection. Fins base temperature step up steadily with rising input power because more input is
responsible for storing more energy within material. Heat dissipation rate from the fin is
controlled mostly by convection and radiation. High temperatures always enhance the natural
convective heat transfer but balance between inputs and out control the storing heat, only
accountable quantity for temperature rise. At same input hollow fin base temperature is lower
than the solid fin most of test result. Concentric hole in solid fin add extra surface area that is
responsible to augmentation of extra heat dissipation compare to solid fin, as a result balance
storing energy quantity reduced the base temperature. Hollow fin is lighter in weight compare to
solid.

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 Ø Solid Fin Results:-

ExpNo. V×I Wood Temperature Base Plate Fin Temperature

Temperature

Inside Outside Inside Outside Fin Fin Fin

Tip Middle Base
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 T9 T10 T11 T12 T13
1 26×0.194 44.9 46.4 46.8 36.4 38.3 34.9 47.1 47.2 46.1 46 44.2 45.2 45.7

2 34×0.253 57.4 59.5 60.3 43 46.5 40.9 59.6 59.8 58.7 58.3 57.1 57.5 59.5

3 37×0.280 65.9 68.4 69.5 49.2 53.3 46.5 65.8 65.9 63.4 63.3 63.3 63.6 64.5 28

4 40×0.304 67.1 69.8 71.1 47.6 52.3 45 72.3 72.5 70.3 70.1 68.2 69 70

5 45×0.334 77.7 80.5 82.3 51.2 59.3 50 81.8 81.6 74.8 74.8 75.8 75.9 76.4

38
 Ø Hollow fin result:-

ExpNo. V×I Wood Temperature Base Plate Fin Temperature Tamb

Temperature

Inside Outside Inside Outside Fin Fin Fin

Tip Middle Base
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 T9 T10 T11 T12 T13

1 26×0.197 47.7 48.4 48 38.1 40.7 36.5 49 50.5 48.1 48.4 46.4 46.9 47.8
28
2 34*0.251 58.2 60.2 60 43.6 48.2 41.3 62.5 62.9 61.4 61.6 52.1 54.3 57.2

3 40×0.303 67.7 69.4 68.5 47.7 53 44 73.9 74.4 71.3 71.5 64.1 65.3 67.6

4 44×0.329 75.2 78.7 77.1 52.6 59.2 48.1 83.7 84.9 82.5 82.3 71.3 72.9 75.04

39
Using experimental data , a numerical analysis have done by COMSOL software which is finite
element base tool. Bellow all the figure show the result of solid fin which base temperature has
taken from experiment.

Numerical analysis:

Ø Computation domain

Ø Meshing of the domain

Mesh on selected faces consists of 8338 elements. Minimum quality: 0.6161; average quality: 0.9106.

40
Ø Temperature of pin fin

41
Ø Temperature distribution of pin fin

42
Ø Temperature distribution of fluid in a plane

43
Ø Velocity distribution in a plane

44
Ø Velocity distribution in volume

45
Ø Velocity distribution in a plane

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Conclusion
A comparison of natural convective heat transfer between a solid and hollow fin has investigated
experimentally as well as some numerically. Hollow fin shows better heat transfer performance
compare to solid under same operating condition .In addition hollow fin is lighter in weight; this
is extra added advantage due to less material and low cost. Effect of radiation is neglected because
of low temperature.

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