Concurrent thermal design for high-power electronics

Concurrent thermal design with analysis of different aspects is critical to the current trend to reduce costs and time-to-market. Computer models are used with increasing frequency in the electronics industry to predict thermal performance of heat sinks and systems. Thermal performance plays a governing role in design optimization with significant considerations for assembly and compactness constraints. Design aspects for a 744 W dissipation electronics unit are presented in this paper. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for three-dimensional forced convection with parameter sensitivity results were performed to design an optimized heat sink. Results from these CFD simulations were combined with a thermal network to predict maximum heat sink temperatures. Stress analysis was performed to optimize the rigidity of the front grille while minimizing flow impedance. Agreement to within 10% of experimental results was obtained for the optimized system thermal performance. The optimized design meets the thermal specifications in a compact space at low cost and is easy to manufacture.