The results
Optimizing Heat Dissipation and Saving 4-6 Week Time
McCall’s team used simulations to test the orientation of the fins on one of their product’s enclosures. Several different CAD designs were investigated and used to improve the performance of the heat dissipation. This helped them avoid prototyping each of these designs since the simulation was already verified with the first prototype. This way, the team could find the right direction faster and cheaper. In total, McCall and the team spent about a week on 4 iterations of the design, saving about 4 to 6 week time.
The simulation data were verified and tested on a physical prototype as well. As QRC believes, all simulations, from any computer-aided engineering software, need to be taken with a grain of salt until the model is verified. McCall noted that the time used for simulations was definitely a week well spent, as one of the permutations of the design performed worse than the original. Thanks to the SimScale CAE platform, the team avoided expensive and long testing of an underperforming design.
The reason we went with SimScale is because it doesn’t lock up resources locally. I like the advantage of uploading the CAD into the cloud and running the simulation on someone else’s computer that we rent time on.
This case study was based on the article originally published on engineering.com and written by Shawn Wasserman, Simulation Editor. Edits were made by SimScale.