Experimental investigation on the performance of RT-44HC-nickel foam-based heat sinks for thermal management of electronic gadgets

• Higher thermal conductivity of nickel foam-PCM composite is achieved as compared to that of pristine PCM. • Insertion of PCM reduces the heat sink base temperature effectively. • Reduction in base temperature is more pronounced for higher fractions of PCM. • Maximum reduction in base temperature was noticed by 20.47% for ΨPCM = 0.8 at heat flux 2.4 kW/m2. • Temperature distribution was found with maximum temperature difference of 1.13 °C. A large amount of heat is generated during the operation of electronic gadgets. Efficient thermal management is crucial for their safe operation and reliability. Phase change materials serve the role to maintain almost constant temperature during the phase change process by absorbing the generated heat. Therefore, the present experimental investigation is performed to single out the thermal performance of nickel foam-based heat sink embedded with RT-44HC paraffin as phase change material (PCM). Nickel foam is used for a high heat transfer area with a minimum reduction in the latent heat of a composite PCM. Results revealed that at the end of the charging process, the heat sink base temperature is reduced by 18.6% when a PCM volume fraction of 0.6 was added to the nickel foam. Furthermore, as the PCM fraction increased, the base temperature decreased further. An 11.6% additional decrease in temperature of the PCM was observed for volume fraction increment from 0.6 to 0.8. The effective thermal conductivity of the composite PCM was noticed to be enhanced by six times as that of a pristine PCM. The discharging process of the composite PCM was delayed compared with that of nickel foam without PCM. However, the sink temperature lies within the safe limits for the composite PCM. The latent heat of the composite PCM was diminished by 23% when effective thermal conductivity was enhanced. Thus, a nickel foam-PCM based heat sink is an efficient source to maintain the electronics temperature within the safe limits.