Abstract: In order to better understand the mechanisms of the cooling enhancement by the liquid metal based cooling technique, the heat transfer performances of the heat sink using liquid gallium and water as coolants for chip cooling are numerically simulated and compared to reveal the influences of channel length and diameter, Re and thermal conductivity on the heat dissipation rate. The results indicate that when liquid gallium is used as coolant, the chip temperature slightly changes with the channel length, and decreases with increasing channel diameter and Re. It is found that the critical length increases with Re, the cooling effect of liquid gallium is better than that of water only when the channel length is smaller than the critical length. It is also found that increasing the thermal conductivity can make the decrease extent of the chip temperature smaller. All the results provide the theoretical basis for better designing the cooling systems that use liquid metal as coolant.

Key words: Chip cooling, Heat transfer performance, Liquid metal, Numerical simulation