Heat sinks are used in electronic devices to sink heat energy into the environment and to cool your devices.
But what exactly is a heat sink, and how does it work?
For this purpose, heat sinks are often used.
What Is a Heat Sink?
Heat sinks are designed in a way to provide a low thermal resistive path to devices for heat removal.
Aluminum is a low-cost metal compared to other thermally conductive materials like silver and gold.
Image credit: Hafizan Mohamad Noor/flickr
The heat from a relatively small electronic casing is absorbed by a flat metal plate through conduction.
Conduction is often facilitated by applying athermal pastebetween the electronic unit’s outer casing and the heat sink.
This ensures proper physical contact with high thermally conductive paste.
Image credit: Hafizan Mohamad Noor/flickr
Thus, the surface area of the heat sink is efficiently utilized.
However, calculating spreading resistance is outside the scope of this article.
Natural vs.
In this process, the flow or speed of fluid molecules is slow.
Either aDC or a PWM fancan be used.
The increased airflow results in more heat carried away from the heat sink.
Usually, heat sinks are colored black, increasing their thermal radiation capability.
