Experimental investigation of carbon nanotube coated heat sink for LED thermal management

Abstract

In this paper, brushing technique was used to coat carbon nanotubes (CNT) on 6063 aluminium alloy in order to investigate the heat transfer performance for Light Emitting Diode (LED) application. The two different thickness such as 0.5 mm and 1 mm coating of CNT was applied an aluminium plate. Performance parameters, like LED case and junction temperatures and heat sink thermal resistance were studied. The results showed that the LED case temperature for 0.5 mm thick CNT coated heat sink decreased by 16.25 % when compared to alumimum plate at 400 mA. For the 400 mA, the 0.5 mm CNT coated heat sink has junction temperature 89 °C while the junction temperature of 1 mm CNT coated heat sink is 111 °C, reduced by 19.81 %. Heat sink thermal resistance for 0.5 mm thick CNT coated heat sink was reduced by 37.72 % compared with that of the 1 mm thick CNT heat sink at 300 mA. The CNT coating thickness of 0.5 mm was identified to produce efficient heat dissipation.