Thermal stresses in the microchannel heatsink cooled by liquid nitrogen
Microchannel heatsinks represent a highly efficient and compact method for heat removal in high heat flux components. Excellent thermal performance of a silicon microchannel heatsink has been demonstrated using liquid nitrogen as the coolant. For the heating of a 1 square centimeter area, at a heat dissipation of 500 W, a typical silicon heatsink cooled by liquid nitrogen has a thermal resistance of 0.046 cm{sup 2}{degrees}K/W. The actual heatsink structure in this case is only 0.1 cm high. Silicon, although it has excellent thermal properties at liquid nitrogen temperatures, may fracture with very little plastic deformation due to mechanical and thermal stresses. Because the fracture strength of silicon depends on the presence of small defects, strength of the heatsink structures must be addressed to insure highly reliable heatsink devices. Microchannel heatsink reliability can be affected by thermal stresses that arise due to temperature gradients between the base and fin and along the film length. These stresses are combined with the bonding stresses that arise in attaching components at elevated temperatures to the silicon heatsink and then cooling the structure to the cryogenic operating temperatures. These bonding stresses are potentially large because of the differences in the values of the coefficients of thermal expansion in silicon heatsink material, and the attached component materials. The stress results are shown for a 17:1 aspect ratio heatsink cooled in liquid nitrogen. The temperature gradients are a result of a surface heat flux of 1.3 kW/cm{sup 2}, approximating the heat dissipation of an RF power chip. The chip is connected to an aluminum nitride substrate, then the chip and substrate module are attached to the heatsink at a bonding temperature of 600{degrees}K, as for a gold tin eutectic bond. The stresses are shown to be within the allowables of the materials involved.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 10177976
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC-114422; CONF-930722-15; ON: DE93018660
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Annual meeting of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE),San Diego, CA (United States),11-16 Jul 1993; Other Information: PBD: 30 Jun 1993
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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