The effect of the geometric and thermal parameters on the thermal stresses during the passive cooling of printed circuit boards

The effect of components’ thermal properties in addition to their geometric configuration on the developed thermal stress in a model printed circuit board (PCB) is investigated. This effect is quantified through three parameters, the average normalized temperature gradient, maximum normalized temperature gradient and the uniformity factor. It is found that the effect of the geometric configuration, especially that of the heat-generating component, is more significant than the thermal properties of the components.