Measurements of heat dissipation from miniaturized vertical rectangular fin arrays under dominant natural convection conditions

Experiments have been conducted to investigate the effects of miniaturizing the base plate dimensions of vertically based straight rectangular fin arrays on the steady-state heat-dissipation performance under dominant natural convection conditions. The miniaturization process was initiated from a square-based array of 49×49 mm² (maximum base area) and terminated at a square-based array of 25×25 mm² (minimum base area) with rectangular-based arrays of varying intermediate areas in between. Two inter-fin separation distances of 3 and 11 mm were used. The effect of base plate orientation on the heat-dissipation performance was studied through comparison of present results with those of an earlier work, in which the arrays were miniaturized with the base horizontally oriented. A correlation for miniaturized vertically based straight rectangular fin arrays, which employed the fin length as the prime geometric parameter, has been presented on the basis of the experimental conditions of this investigation.