Thermal Analysis of Helical Pin Fins at Different Pitch Steps Through Numerical Technique

Many modern-day applications rely on heat sinks for heat dissipation. Pin fins are one of the heatsinks that are used for cooling and the convection coefficient of a pin fin depends on many parameters that need optimization. The pin fin in its plain form isn’t efficient enough and there are ways to not only enhance its heat transfer rate but also reduce its weight simultaneously. This study aims to geometrically modify a plain pin fin to enhance the effective area for convective heat transfer. This study contains a comprehensive comparison between simple pin fin heatsinks and their corresponding heatsinks with helical-shaped profiles on the outer surface. A helical pattern was made using different pitches 2, 4, 6, and 8 mm and they were tested at air speeds of 2, 4, 6 and 8 m/s. Computational fluid dynamic analysis was performed to measure the performance of heatsinks. The tetrahedral mesh was used for simulation, and it was concluded that the helical fin having a 2 mm pitch performed the best and therefore had the highest convection coefficient of 202.69 W/m2K at 8 m/s airspeed.