Performance and flow characteristics of miniature EHD air blowers for thermal management applications
2018 (English)In: Journal of Electrostatics, ISSN 0304-3886, E-ISSN 1873-5738, Vol. 93, p. 31-42Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) air blowers are receiving increasing attention as a thermal management cooling solution to overcome the restrictions of traditional rotary cooling systems used in small-scale consumer electronics. In this work, the performance and flow pattern characteristics of miniature EHD air blowers are evaluated for practical convective heat transfer applications, based on device size, operating voltage and power, and generated flow rate. For a range of blower heights up to 10 mm, two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) numerical models of a wire-to-plane EHD channel configuration are developed and validated against previous experimental data. Investigation of the influence of blower sidewalls, based on width parameter, on flow characteristics reveals that the 2D simulations for short and wide blower domains are valid to predict the generated flow rates effectively compared to that obtained by the means of 3D simulations. An optimized combined EHD blower is developed as a flow-controlled cooling system in thermal management applications, which minimizes the required operating voltages for specified flow rates. Comparisons against commercial rotary blowers demonstrate that the miniature EHD blowers are more competitive as cooling solutions for compact applications and extended heated surfaces based on transduction efficiency, blower size, flow production of uniform velocity profile, and power consumption.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2018. Vol. 93, p. 31-42
Keywords [en]
EHD flow characteristics, Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) air blowers, Microelectronics cooling, Pumping performance, Thermal management, Compressors, Cooling, Cooling systems, Electrohydrodynamics, Electronic cooling, Energy efficiency, Flow patterns, Heat convection, Heat transfer, Microelectronics, Temperature control, Thermal variables control, Thermoelectric equipment, Air blowers, Convective heat transfer, EHD flows, Electrohydrodynamic (EHD), Micro electronics cooling, Thermal management applications, Three dimensional (3D) numerical models, Blowers
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-33972DOI: 10.1016/j.elstat.2018.03.004Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85044103045OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-33972DiVA, id: diva2:1230380
Note
Funding details: D-11-3102, HCED, Higher Committee for Education Development in Iraq;Funding details: University of Leeds; Funding text: The 3D modelling work was undertaken on POLARIS, part of the High Performance Computing facilities at the University of Leeds, UK. Funding support from the Higher Committee for Education Development in Iraq (HCED Ref. No. D-11-3102 ) is gratefully acknowledged.
2018-07-032018-07-032023-05-22Bibliographically approved