Optimum performances of longitudinal convective fins with symmetrical and asymmetrical profiles

In the present work, the heat transfer performance of optimized dissipators with longitudinal fins of asymmetrical cross section is investigated and compared with that of optimized dissipators with symmetrical fins. In particular, the problem of optimizing the shape and the spacing of the fins of a thermal dissipator cooled by a fluid in laminar flow is studied by assigning two different polynomial lateral profiles to the fins. A finite element model is proposed to determine velocity and temperature distributions and is employed in a genetic algorithm to find the dissipator geometries which make the heat transfer coefficient as high as possible under different conditions. Some examples of optimized geometries are finally shown and discussed.