Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Natural Convection in Plate-Fin Heat Sinks Using Comsol® Multiphysics

Heat sinks are commonly used to enhance heat transfer and maintain suitable operating temperatures in electronic and other heat-generating devices. In this study, natural convection heat transfer under transient and steady-state conditions was investigated in an aluminum heat sink with flat rectangular fins. Experimental tests and numerical simulations using COMSOL® Multiphysics 5.2 were performed to evaluate the temperature distribution and to determine an appropriate positioning of the temperature sensors. The computational domain and boundary conditions were defined to reproduce the experimental setup, and the heat flux generated by a resistive heater was imposed as the thermal input to the numerical model. Experimental and numerical results were compared using the steady-state temperature measured at the fin tip. The numerical model showed good agreement with the experimental data, with a temperature difference of approximately 1.3 K for the selected mesh, supporting the use of the computational model for the analysis of natural convection heat transfer in the heat sink.