natural convection heat sinks low profile heat sinks copper heat sinks NATURAL CONVECTION HEAT SINKS High performance natural convection heat sinks can be designed to include heat pipes. Because natural convection heatsinks often require a large footprint, effective heat spreading is important. Natural convection heat sinks also typically have a large temperature increase over the ambient air. Natural convection heatsinks dissipate anywhere from four to ten times less heat than a forced convection heatsinks with the same surface area. For these reasons, natural convection heatsinks are considerably larger than equivalent forced convection heatsinks. t is however possible to go one step further and look at natural convection heat sinks in a given volume. In natural convection applications the best method for reducing film resistance is achieved by increasing the effective surface area for convective heat transfer through the use of natual convection heat sinks and extended surfaces. Convection Heat sinks range from expensive, custom-machined parts to inexpensive, off-the-shelf extrusions. "Natural Convection heat sinks" used for cooling electronics provide a conduction path from the semiconductor device package to the ambient air. Transfer from heat sinks to the environment may be due to convection or radiation. If your product uses natural convection, the critical parameters will include: local upstream air temperature the surface temperature of the surrounding walls board orientation