Natural-convection heat transfer enhancement of aluminum heat sink using nanocoating by electron beam method

The high power density and compactness of the next generation electronic devices necessitate efficient and effective cooling methods for heat dissipation in order to maintain the temperature at an acceptable safety level. In the present work, aluminum nanocoating was employed in a heat sink to study the heat transfer performance under natural-convection conditions. The nanocoating was achieved using an electron beam method while the characteristics of nanocoated surfaces were analysed using SEM, an energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, surface roughness profilometry equipment and by X-ray diffraction techniques. The heat dissipation from heat sink with and without nanocoating under natural-convection has been experimentally studied at different controllable surrounding temperatures. A uniform increase in the surface roughness by the nanocoating was seen in all cases. The conclusion from several experimental results was that the effect of nanocoating in augmenting the heat transfer is more pronounced only when there is a sufficient temperature driving potential.