Heat sinks have long been used when it comes to the cooling of electronic components in order to maintain them under the maximum allowed operating temperature. Thermal management for these electronic components raises several challenges for heat sink designers and engineers. The challenges are related to the heat sink material such as thermal resistance and conductivity. One example is the decision of whether to use pin fin, staggered or flared heat sink for specific cooling requirements. To assess their cooling efficiency, the classical approach of Design-Build-Test-Redesign is time-consuming and expensive. Designers are now turning to an effective method to virtually evaluate, test, and optimize designs for maximum cooling efficiency before they are built, saving production time and cost. Thermal simulations is the computerized method to study the heat dissipation efficiency of a heat sink both in the conceptual and detailed design stages. SimScale allows engineers to quickly analyze the heat sink design for thermal resistance and conductivity. Moreover, they can also compare various types that may include active, passive, stamped, single fin, or forged.
Determine the required air flow around a heat sink to enhance the thermal resistance for satisfying the thermal criteria.
Using SimScale, you can compare the performance of a heat sink with different materials to ensure better thermal conductivity for faster cooling. In this webinar focusing on conduction, learn how to use simulation to select the best heat sink design for an LED lighting system.
Energy efficiency is essential for an environment-friendly product. SimScale enables you to compare different design versions to obtain better results.
Ensure proper cooling of the design and determine if the ventilation is sufficient to safeguard and protect the components from overheating. With this white paper, find out how to develop the best cooling strategy for electronics.
Decide whether passive cooling is sufficient to safeguard and protect the components from overheating or active cooling is required. This webinar recording focuses on electronic packaging cooling with online CFD.
Studying heat transfer in solids (FEA), fluids (CFD) and the interaction between them (CHT) is necessary in thermal management processes. With this webinar, learn the basics of heat transfer and thermal analysis.
The SimScale Community gives you access to completed public simulation projects
Common in consumer electronics, LEDs need to have a proper cooling mechanism, and they usually include a heat sink. This heat transfer analysis was performed on three different light emitting diode (LED) packages used in consumer electronics. Its focus was to evaluate the cooling performance for different LEDs array placement.
Electronic chips are used in a wide range of electronic circuits. Power loss normally occurs in these chips due to the rise in temperature which decreases their efficiency. To be able to operate at maximum power and be reliable over time, designers need to make sure that the cooling architecture of heat sinks is appropriate for their energy consumption.
I have used a lot of simulation packages over the past 25 years, including Nastran, Ansys, SolidWorks, and a whole host of others. I have been using SimScale for about nine months now and it has become my goto simulation tool. It allows me to run models larger than I have ever conceived on my own workstation.
Christopher Quijano Mechanical Engineer at MSA, United States
