Ever seen such a cooler?

Cooling performance depends very much on the surface of the HS, so take the time and examine my calculations below please.

The surface of an average cooler would be
surface of fins + surface of base
lets assume:
fin surface = 8 cm width * 5 cm height *2 (each fin two sides) * pcs of fins? Lets say 50 fins = 4000 cm2
base surface = 8 * 8 = 64 cm2
total surface = 4064 cm2
Ok lets say 0,5 m2.

But what if I would use copper wires instead of fins.
Lets say 0,5 mm diameter copper wire length 60 mm (6 cm)
The surface of each = 2 * 3,14 * 0,25 *60 = 94,2 mm2 (I omit the base and top of the wires)

How many wires would fit on this cooler? Assume that base of cooler is circular, say 50 mm diameter (5 cm a very small cooler)

The surface of this base would be = 3,14* (25mm *25mm ) = 1962,5 mm2

The surface of the base of each wire would be = 3,14 * (0,25mm *0,25mm) = 0,19625 mm2
So 1962,5 / 0,19625 = 10.000 wires

The surface of 1 wire was 94,2 mm2 * 10.000 = 942.000 mm2 = 0,942 m2

Almost double the surface in half the size ? Woww!!
Do you think my calculations are correct?
If so, did anybody seen such a cooler, (It would actually look like a brush.

If cooling performance mostly depends on the surface of the cooler than such a design would be a definite winner.

PS: I just calculated with 0,2 mm wire and got 2,35 m2 cooling surface 5 times more then an average HS.

You just have the problem with wires getting damaged too easily

How would the heat conduct through the wires? More surface area is dandy but at the expense of the cross-sectional area attached to the base of the heatsink. Therefore the wires will be chilly but the base still nice 'n' hot

Sure have. They're called the Swiftec's.

There comes a point where surface area begins to lead to diminishing returns, due to lack of airflow. All Thermalrights and Swiftech's illustrate this. When paired up with lower airflow fans, they begin to lose their edge that they have with high airflow fans. The MCX462+, for example gains nearly .10 C/W with a fan running at 2500 rpm, as opposed to one running at 5500rpm. While all heatsink designs obviously thrive with airflow, higher surface area designs have dramatic changes in performance depending on it.
With that said, the design still does play out quite nicely in the real world, and the Swiftech shows this. Your idea is taken a step farther, and could probably do very well.

Toysrme said:

Sure have. They're called the Swiftec's.

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Damn, you are right, swiftec's are in fact some kind of that design, and sure they must have made the same calculations of course. I was just curious what kind of designs used my idea out there but I never noticed that the swiftec's are such

Toysrme said:

Sure have. They're called the Swiftec's.

Click to expand...

No... they're called the Zalman Flower HS.