Using PSpice to model the cooling performance of convective surfaces

The electronic circuit simulator PSpice can provide the means of obtaining numerical non-analytic solutions to thermal heat flow problems which would otherwise be difficult or impossible to derive. Rules for relating physical heat flow parameters to equivalent distributed lossy transmission line parameters are derived. This method for numerical evaluation of the heat dissipating performance of complicated fin structures forming cold-stacks is validated by comparison with previously published analytic solutions for double stack cold plates. Although the focus of the presentation is on the static, i.e. DC performance, the extension of this numerical simulation technique to transient problems in heat transfer of interconnected fin structures is clarified.