Author(s)

Kevin R. Anderson, Matthew Devost, Watit Pakdee, Niveditha Krishnamoorthy

CD-Adpaco, One Technology Drive, Irvine, CA, USA.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Thammasat University (Rangsit Campus), Bangkok, Thailand.
Nonlinear FEA/CFD Multi-Physics Simulation Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, USA.

As telecommunication and RF power electronics applications continue to push the envelope of waste heat dissipation, more and more, we see a need for active thermal control employing forced air electronic cooling fans in unison with pumped fluid loops in order to meet temperature and performance requirements. This research paper presents results of applying Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) commercial industry STAR-CCM+ software for heat transfer and fluid flow simulation of a novel heat exchanger/cold plate fabricated from k-core high thermal conductivity material in order to realize thermal control system hardware design for very much applications to very large power density (~1 kW/m2) electronics packaging scenarios. Trade studies involving different heat exchanger/cold plate materials, as well as vari- ous fault scenarios within a mock-up of a typical electronics system, are used to illustrate the upper bounds placed on the convective heat transfer coefficient. Agreement between our present findings and previous research in the field of electronics cooling is presented herein.

CFD; High Thermal Conductivity; Heat Sink; Cooling Plate; Thermal Control

Anderson, K. , Devost, M. , Pakdee, W. and Krishnamoorthy, N. (2013) STAR CCM+ CFD Simulations of Enhanced Heat Transfer in High-Power Density Electronics Using Forced Air Heat Exchanger and Pumped Fluid Loop Cold Plate Fabricated from High Thermal Conductivity Materials. Journal of Electronics Cooling and Thermal Control, 3, 144-154. doi: 10.4236/jectc.2013.34016.