Bonded fins are a good high power solution for either natural or forced convection. Individual straight fins are cut and bonded into a grooved base plate. The fins are usually thicker than you would find on a zipper/skived or folded fin, so they have the capacity to be more efficient, even at tall heights. Aluminum and copper fins can be combined on the same heat sink to provide improved performance without all of the weight gain. If weight is especially important, graphite fins can also be used, but they are more delicate so extra care must be taken. Wakefield-Vette produces some standard sizes, and some of the sizes can be purchased with a bracket for easy mounting of a fan.
In some applications it is helpful to have devices mounted to both the top and bottom of a heat sink with a fin structure in between for compactness. While this can be accomplished using a sandwich bonded fin, another method is the stack fin heat sink. An individual fin is extruded so that it looks like an “I”. There are interlocking features in both top and bottom bases. A series of the fins are stacked side by side and compressed together to form a heat sink. The top and bottom surface of each base is machined to ensure a flat mounting surface and then any secondary features are added. Depending upon the construction of the interlocking features, thermal epoxy can be used between the sections to improve the performance.
Contact us for more information regarding bonded fin heat sink.