Effect of Fe3O4 Nanoparticle on Electronic Cooling: Numerical Investigation of Nanofluid Flow Through a Heat Sink

Nanotechnology is a branch of science and engineering concerned with the design, production and use of structures, and systems through manipulating of atoms and molecules on the nanoscale, which has become necessary in electronics to follow rapid development in this sector, where precision and high performance are required. To learn about how adding nanoparticles affects heat transfer, flow of water and nanofluid inside heat sink filled with copper foam at a constant porosity is compared numerically in this paper. Fe3O4–H2O nanofluid is selected as a coolant with constant concentration and diameter of nanoparticles. To enhance simulation accuracy, Eulerian two-phase modeling is used to predict the behavior of nanofluid. The simulation results were validated by comparing them with experimental data found in the literature, and good agreement was reached. Results clearly confirmed that nanofluid improved heat transfer by 50% and surface temperature reduced by 14 °C compared with water as a coolant. Opposite position of copper foam inside heat sink leads to an enhancement of Nusselt number, thus improving cooling efficiency.