college project: case pressure

However heat transfer from heatsink to air is not limited by the heat capacity of the air. It's limited by the various convection relationships and by the temperature gradient. The convection relationships are very much affected by airflow past the heatsinks.

This is before you consider how much above atmospheric pressure the air in a computer case can be. While air may move around it swiftly, the difference in density between various reasons is going to be slight, and heat capacity related to the absolute pressure not the gauge pressure.

So, I think you have a negligible pressure increase, which would be exerting a negligible effect on heat transfer even were the pressure difference considerable, and which is completely disguised by the convection relationships.

Unless you don't actually mean pressure, but as an engineering student I'd hope you know what pressure is.

i havent gone into much depth so far with the report because i know i need to do a lot of research...

you (and others in this thread) seem to know loads of what i need to know!

do you have any information/tips on the direction i should take this in?

thanks in advance :)
 
Find a copy of "Engineering Thermodynamics: Work and Heat Transfer" by Rogers and Mayhew, and read the bit about forced convection. I think you probably want to do a study on how airflow affects component temperatures, and drop the word pressure almost entirely.

You could look into the laminar to turbulent transition in your heatsink in order to find the optimum temperature to noise ratio perhaps. Or look into the effects of push/pull on a heatsink, or shrouds. Is there any chance you can use a block at known temperature instead of a computer for this? A piece of copper with some holes drilled in and heating elements mounted in the holes will provide a pretty good simulation of a processor and greatly simplify the measurements.
 
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