Thermal and energy performance characteristics of spiral-wing pin-fin heatsinks for liquid cooling of electronic devices in electric vehicles

Insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) are crucial components of electric vehicles (EVs) that regulate power. Liquid cooling has emerged as a cooling solution for high-power IGBTs in EVs. Although several pin-fin heatsinks (PFHs) have been developed to enhance cooling performance, comprehensive research on PFHs for IGBTs under liquid-cooling conditions is limited. This study investigated the cooling performance improvement of spiral-wing pin-fin heatsinks (SWPFHs) against conventional PFHs under liquid-cooling conditions. Using the developed simulation model, the optimal design of the SWPFH was determined to achieve the maximum Webb efficiency, which indicates the heat transfer capacity at the same power consumption. Furthermore, the heat transfer performance of the optimized SWPFH was compared with those of conventional PFHs with circular, square, and hexagonal pin-fin heatsinks under practical Reynolds numbers. The optimized SWPFH exhibited the lowest maximum temperature and standard temperature deviation among the conventional PFHs. The Webb efficiency of the optimized SWPFH was 21.9% higher on average than that of the conventional circular pin-fin heatsink (CPFH) owing to the enhanced mixing effects with the reduced wake region. Overall, the use of SWPFH for cooling IGBTs in EVs is recommended to improve the thermal performance of the CPFH under the same pumping power.