Talk:Heat sink

message: I just wanted to comment that heat spreading/dissipating devices are by no means limited in application to microelectronics (or, to put it bluntly, PC microprocessors).  I would try to improve this article's scope myself, but my focus lies elsewhere right now.  This is merely a suggestion for anybody who might decide to improve the article. -- uberpenguin 20:06, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, you're absolutely right.  In thermodynamics, the term is used to mean somewhere that heat can be transferred to. In engineering, things like engines, power plants, these all have heat sinks, for example a power plant might use a nearby lake as a 'heat sink'. I think the PC microprocessor usage probably came after all this, and is a fairly specific example. Brendanfox 08:02, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not only that, but according to a recent paper in Science, an account of which is here, toucans use their bills as heat sinks.  Heat sinks in nature seem to be definitely worth going into the article. Lexo (talk) 10:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Very true, sounds like a PC enthusiast has written the whole article, and so many pictures of various CPUs are absolutely redundant. How about pictures of the heatsink on some Audio Power amplifier or a SMPS switching driver transistor?Sub40Hz (talk) 19:55, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope of this article 

message: : It is claimed that some brands of thermal grease that are advertised as containing silver or silver oxide actually contain neither, most notably that of CompUSA.
- 81.155.170.206 16:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I nowikied the template so that this talk page does not show up in the articles lacking sources category. -- Kjkolb 18:42, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed pending citation

message: Heatsink or heat sink? -- Frap 11:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's "heat sink" in my dictionary. --Charles Gaudette 00:37, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name? 

message: :"Aluminum has the significant advantage that it can be easily formed by extrusion, thus making complex cross-sections possible."
This doesn't ring true with me — copper versus aluminum — they are both very malleable metals. I further asked someone with aerospace materials management experience, and they called it bogus too. If it can be cited to a reliable source, then by all means, put it back in the article. --Charles Gaudette 01:45, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure whether this was the original authors source, but a source confirming that claim is Groover's Fundamentals of Modern Manufacturing, Third Edition, p419, which says "Aluminum is probably the most ideal metal for extrusion (hot and cold), and many commercial aluminum products are made by this process...", a few pages later on p424 as an example of extrusions ability to form complex cross-sections is a picture of an aluminum heat sink. Brendanfox 23:46, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I still have a problem with "significant advantage"; for instance extruded copper wire, and the tools and art of the Bronze Age. Does anyone have the ISBN for that book? --Charles Gaudette 01:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The ISBN is 0-471-74485-9 .  The book also mentions "copper, magnesium, zinc, tin and their alloys" as typical metals used in extrusion, but it does seem to draw attention to aluminum as being "the most ideal".  Unfortunately it doesn't give any particular reason for this.  We could change the wording, tone it down a bit, but the basis of the claim (i.e. that aluminum extrudes better than copper) appears to be valid.  Brendanfox 02:00, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (First off, understand I am not fighting against you, just trying to work our way to a better "Heat sink" article.) Even if aluminum is easier to extrude, the underlying thrust implies that aluminum heat sinks are a cheaper manufacturing process (I'll give aluminum a raw materials cost lower than copper). Thanks for the ISBN. I'll have to do some research to catch-up to you, ... American Metals Association, hmm... --Charles Gaudette 19:04, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

text: No probs.  You might also be interested in the graph from slide 47 of this:  - Brendanfox 04:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed pending citation #2 

message: :First, consider noting that the term "heat sink" is a misnomer and that this expression is not found in heat transfer textbooks. A heat sink is a collection of extended fin surfaces (Hot Air Rises and Heat Sinks, Kordyban). Second, consider distinguishing between bonded fin heat sinks and extruded fins, augmented bonded fin heat sinks, etc.
P.K., August 6, 2007
I'm an old-timer, a retired lifelong electronic tech with a couple of years as an associate editor at Electronic Design magazine, and the term "heat sink" has continually been a very mild irritant; it's borderline slang (embedded update follows), although by very wide usage, I'd say that nearly everybody concerned knows what it means. I was mildly sorry to see the term as an article title; it seems somewhat too close to slang.
Update, 20110907 (Sept.): I read a following comment that rebuts effectively the idea that "heat sink" is a slang term.
This would not be an isolated instance, it seems to me, of what might have originally been slang becoming an accepted and well-defined term, although at the moment, I can't think of a good example. Live and learn! Regards, Nikevich (talk) 10:19, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two considerations for improving article 

message: I have heard that Black Heat Sinks work better that non anodized or painted.  Yet, I can't find conclusive evidence either way.
I suspect that there has been a misunderstanding of black bodies being ideal sources of thermal radiation.
I think that in reality, the ideal source property describes the lack of environmental interference when making measurements.
The Anodize article does state that anodized aluminum has lower thermal conductivity than plain aluminum.
Anodized aluminum would be protected from corrosion, which may be more detrimental.
Does anyone have a source with the answer?
Here is what I have found so far:
From http://www.radianheatsinks.com/support/faqs.html
   How does the color of a heat sink impact its thermal performance?
   In natural convection a black or dark colored heatsink will perform 3% to 8% better
   than an aluminum heatsink in its natural silverish color. This is due to the fact
   that dark colors radiate heat more efficiently.
   
   In forced air applications, surface color does not increase a heat sink's performance
   due to the increase in convection. The color would provide cosmetic benefits only.
From http://www.globalwinusa.com/faqs/heatsink/color.html
   Does heatsink color affect heat dissipation?
   
   Black is the best thermal body in terms of being a absorber or emitter. Let's assume
   a vacuum situation, if the surface "A" of a black heatsink is totally covered at T1
   (temperature 1) by another black body at T2 (temperature 2), the black heatsink would
   get the energy reflected from another black body at reflection energy Ad(T14-T24) that
   we call "Stefan-Boltzmann" law of thermal radiation, here refers to Stefan Boltzmann
   Constant, it is 5.6697 x 10-8 W/m2?K4. Therefore if based on above, T1 is the
   temperature obtained from the black heatsink onto CPU, T2 is the ambient temperature
   around CPU. So if T14-T24 is a positive value, we know black is the best heat
   dissipation transistor since there is no thermal source around CPU inside PC case.
From http://www.bcae1.com/heatsink.htm
   Do not paint a heat sink. Most heat sinks are anodized aluminum. Painting a heat sink
   (especially if it's a thick coat of paint) is like putting a blanket on the amplifier.
   If you absolutely must paint the heat sink, use the lightest, thinnest coat of paint possible.
Thanks,
Eet 1024 20:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the websites are saying other things equal black is better, which of course makes sense since black radiates more (although what matters is being black in the infrared, which is far from the same thing as being visibly black). But if the way you get it to be black is by adding a layer of paint that harms the thermal conductivity, it's not worth it; radiation is usually a very small proportion of heat transfer. The radiationsink website is basically saying that in natural convection heat sinks, radiation is a small (~10%) contribution to heat transfer, whereas in forced-air heat sinks, it's an utterly negligible contribution. --Steve (talk) 16:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Steve Byrnes. Black in the infrared is good, but not at the cost of an insulating layer of paint. JRSpriggs (talk) 21:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The best thing is to maximize the surface area. If you cannot make it wider, then make it corrugated. JRSpriggs (talk) 18:38, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Found it: Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation.  It all depends on the application, as stated in the radianheatsinks page above.  Will consider adding to the Heat_sink#Performance section. Thanks, Eet 1024 (talk) 05:01, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heat Sink Color 

message: Do any heatsink use material other than alluminum and copper? Since Silver, for example, has thermal conductivity greater than copper, some manufacturer might be interest in this material.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.120.181.104 (talk) 14:43, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Silver would not be used since it is a precious metal. For the same reason that gold is not used. Also, if you are using air, the major thermal resistance is the convection resistance. It is worth more to optimise the air side of the heat sink than to use a very expensive material. For the same reason that copper is used, but only if really necessary. Dtc5341 (talk) 10:17, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Everybody seems to be missing the primary purpose of the heat sink, which is to increase the heat mass of the system and thereby slow down temperature rise time. So the ideal material has a high heat capacity first, and high thermal conductivity second. For metals, these properties are related, for other materials, they are independent. BTW, Aluminum passivates, Copper and Silver do not... Over extended service, Aluminum may be superior.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.215.115.31 (talk) 17:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Material

message: I have removed the claim that heat sink is a colloquial term and the claim that it is never used in academic books.  This is demonstrably untrue.  Google books gets well in excess of 600,000 hits and the first listed is a a book actually called Heat Sink.  Also on the first page of results is Horowitz's book which is widely used on Wikipedia as a reliable source by some electronics editors.  Thinking the term may possibly be avoided in academic journals I tried Scholar and got in excess of 400,000 hits.  These include multiple hits for the Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer (example) who one would think, if anyone, would be avoiding a coloquial term.  There are also many hits for the prestigous IEEE Transactions.
It might be possible to say that the term heat sink as a component arises from the theoretical thermodynamic use of the term where it is opposed to a heat source, although I have no source to hand giving the etymology.  Often, ideal sources and sinks are considered that can supply or absorb any quantity of heat without changing temperature, much as an ideal voltage source can supply or sink any amount of current.
I am not sure exactly what the source, Kordyban, has said on this, but apparently the book is written in a humorous style.  Perhaps someone can provide the exact quote, but it should probably not be taken too serioulsy. SpinningSpark 10:08, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colloquial term? 

message: "But one of the advantage of copper is that it is less loud than aluminium."  I am a lay on the topic; I read this and think of loudness as referring to noise level.  Is that how it is meant?  If so, why would either material make any noise?
--75.67.157.198 (talk) 02:38, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Quick clarification

message: How about heatsinks that are designed to operate in the opposite direction, i.e. transfer heat from the air to a cold object? An example would be this picture which appears in the Billycan article, a cooking pot with a heatsink welded to its base to trap as much heat from the stove as possible. Rwxrwxrwx (talk) 09:52, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not genuinely a heat sink, it is a heat store.  The definition of heat sink implies that there is only one direction of heat flow.  Heat goes in from the fuel, but the metal is acting as a heat source as the heat goes out to the food.  This is similar to the old-fashioned cooking pots with thick copper bottoms.  At the very least, this need a reliable source (preferably journal publication) decribing this as a heat sink before inclusion is warranted. SpinningSpark 07:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: The other direction

message: "Can I link to my website here? I have a lot of good heatsink illustrations."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidfarzam (talk • contribs) 23:26, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No, we do not usually approve of links to uncontrolled private sites.  You can, however, upload images if you are prepared to release them under a free licence. SpinningSpark 07:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

text: I have also removed the batch of three external links recently added.  The first one is a calculator, which is not needed as the article already contains the design formulae.  Calculators are often created by commercial web sites merely in order to generate links to their site rather than a genuine attempt to be useful and are particularly dubious when they fail (as here) to explain details of the calculation.  The second one timed out on me and appears to be dead, at least temporarily (WP:EL#EL7, WP:EL#EL16).  The third one is a power point presentation which would be most useful as an aide-memoire to someone who actually attended the lecture, but not here.  The material is already adequately covered here and anything that isn't can easily be added. See WP:EL, especially WP:EL#EL1. SpinningSpark 08:10, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Linking to heat sink article 

message: In the section: Basic heat sink heat transfer principle there is an equation,
:\dot{Q} = \frac{T_{hs} - T_{air,av}}{R_{hs}} (2)
Where the value of R is not defined as to what it is. There should be some clarification.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dabozz88 (talk • contribs) 13:33, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone please fix this; its frustrating to come across explanations that you have to decipher yourself. 165.123.197.92 (talk) 01:26, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Equation 2 Defination 

message: In the basic heat sink heat transfer principle section, the variable c_{p,in} is not declared, and does not explicitly appear in the associated figure.  Equation numbering is also done manually rather than using the LaTeX-based markup for equation numbering, which may lead to future inconsistencies.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nummify (talk • contribs) 17:06, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Undeclared Variable in Section 1 

message: Lot's of variables used in equations from 5 to 13 are not declared, so these are not easy to use.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.13.11.187 (talk) 06:51, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Undeclared Variable in Section 4.1 

message: what are m and n called, what are their units???????????  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.13.206.51 (talk) 14:27, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  m n 

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