Experimental Investigation of Thermal Management System in Power Supply Using Phase Change Material (PCM)

The power supply, as the main supplier of electrical energy, is used in many electronic devices and circuits. This research has experimentally investigated the thermal management of a computer power supply which uses phase change materials to increase the lifetime, to improve the performance, and to reduce energy consumption. Two heat sinks have been designed and fabricated in two types of plate-fin and pin-fin. The experiments were carried out in the thermal fluxes range of 2.1 – 4.8  and in the constant volume fraction of the phase change material. The results show that the maximum reduction in steady temperature is 10.4  and 8.6 , in the pin-fin and plate-fin heat sink respectively,. Also, the results indicate a better performance of the plate-fin heat sink in comparison with the pin-fin in the process of reducing temperature and cost.