Author Archives: akoss

ATS Design Services Contacted for ECL’s New Recycled LED Street Light

Eco City Lights (ECL), a leading supplier of commercial and industrial LED lighting products, recently contacted ATS design services for help in solving thermal challenges on a newly developed application.

ATS performed a full thermal analysis on ECLs retro-fit solution for cobra head street lights. Services provided by ATS included simulation, validation and reporting for the heat sink, enclosure and system level applications. Experimentation was done in order to validate and optimize the current design and the thermal solution. Using IR Technology and multiple sensors throughout the fixture, LED, heat sink, and power supply, testing was performed to determine the true temperatures of the output and enclosure parameters. After numerous studies were conducted, in addition to reviewing 3D CAD models of the enclosure and application components, ATS was able to successfully analyze the existing thermal management solution for the retro-fit street light.

ATS performed testing and analysis on the LED application

ATS performed testing and analysis on the LED application

Eco City Lights felt it was most important to find a thermal management company to evaluate, analyze, and comment on our led lighting solutions. “After researching our options ECL determined that ATS was the best qualified to handle our project. After personally visiting with Joe Gaylord of ATS and talking with their engineers, we now have a product line that is thermally tested, proven, and cost effective. As our company continues to grow, we will be adding addition products and look forward to working with ATS in the future” said Ken Moeller, President of Eco City Lights.

ECL's Cobra Head Street Light

ECL’s Cobra Head Street Light

Eco City Lights LED products are used in street, sidewalk, parking lot and warehouse applications for municipal, government, and commercial enterprises. It is crucial that the LEDs thermal performance is maximized, ensuring product reliability and an extended lifespan. The new recycled LED streetlight module is proven to save customers over 60 percent of energy consumptions costs, providing long lasting, low maintenance, and energy efficient LED lighting.

From its computational facilities and thermal/fluids laboratories in Massachusetts, ATS specializes in providing thermal analysis, mechanical and design services for the telecommunications, networking, medical, aerospace, defense, embedded computing, and automotive industries with high performance electronic products. To learn more about ATS Design Services, call 781-769-2800, email [email protected], or visit www.qats.com.

New Qpedia Thermal eMagazine Published!

Qpedia Thermal eMagazine, Volume 6, Issue 11, has just been released and can be downloaded at: http://www.qats.com/Qpedia-Thermal-eMagazine/Back-Issues. Featured articles in this month’s issue include:

Honeycomb Heat Sinks for LEDs

LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, are a form of solid-state lighting. An LED light is often made of a small piece of semiconductor, an integrated optical lens used to shape its radiation pattern, and a heat sink, used to dissipate heat and maintain the semiconductor at low operating temperature. LED lights present many advantages over incandescent light sources, including lower energy consumption, longer lifetime, improved physical robustness, smaller size and faster switching. This article examines Ma et al’s  findings with respect to the honeycomb heat sink design employed in LEDs, which has proven to be highly efficient.

Characteristics of Thermosyphons in Thermal Management

With the increase of heat fluxes and shrinking chip sizes in electronics applications, there is a need to spread the heat from the small chip to the larger heat sink or to transport the heat to a location where there is ample space to remove the heat. Heat pipes, vapor chambers and thermosyphons have been introduced to undertake this task and, in this article, we focus on some aspects of the design of thermosyphons. The advantage of thermosyphons is that they have no capillary limit and can transport large amounts of heat over long distances.

Industry Developments: Heat Pipes Providing High Performance

Heat pipes are increasing in type and use for the benefits they provide. Because of their lower total thermal resistance, heat pipes transfer heat more efficiently and evenly than solid aluminum or copper. Heat pipes contain a small quantity of working fluid (e.g. water, acetone, nitrogen, methanol, ammonia). Learn the conclusions of a recent study that focused on the best working fluid and another study of heat pipes in outer space.

Technology Review: Cold Plates, 2010 to 2012

Qpedia continues its review of technologies developed for electronics cooling applications. We are presenting selected patents that were awarded to developers around the world to address cooling challenges. After reading the series, you will be more aware of both the historic developments and the latest breakthroughs in both product design and applications.

Cooling News featuring the latest product releases and buzz from around the electronics cooling industry.

Download the issue now.

Not a Qpedia subscriber? Subscribe Now for free at: http://www.qats.com/Qpedia-Thermal-eMagazine/Subscribe-to-Qpedia and see why over 18,000 engineers read Qpedia.

ARM Microprocessors and ATS superGRIP: Attached at the Clip

Advanced Thermal Solutions, Inc., (ATS), has introduced a line of heat sinks compatible with the Sitara ARM Microprocessor family from Texas Instruments.

AM1707 from Texas Instruments

AM1707 from Texas Instruments

The Sitara ARM Microprocessors feature ARM Cortex-8 and ARM9 MPUs, which are used in a wide variety of Industrial, Medical, and Consumer Electronics applications.

The AM17x family consists of low-power ARM microprocessors that enable OEMs and ODMs to maximize product offerings by providing high processing performance life, advanced operating systems and rich user interfaces. Compatible operating systems include Neutrino, Integrity, Windows, Embedded CE, Linux, VXWorks and Android.

ATS patented maxiFLOW heat sinks with superGRIP clip attachment ensure long-term product reliability and maximum performance from the Sitara ARM Microprocessors. maxiFLOW high performance BGA heat sinks feature a low profile, spread fin array that maximizes surface area for more effective convection air cooling. The unique maxiFLOWTM design provides thermal performance that is 30-200% better than conventional heat sinks.

ATS' maxiFLOW Heat Sink with superGRIP Attachment

ATS’ maxiFLOW Heat Sink with superGRIP Attachment

maxiFLOW is available with pre-assembled phase change material, maxiGRIP clip attachments, and superGRIP clip attachments. The superGRIP attachment system features a plastic frame clip that fastens securely around the perimeter of a component and a metal spring clip that slips through a heat sinks fin field and locks securely to both ends of the plastic frame. The resulting superGRIP assembly applies steady even pressure to the component throughout the product lifecycle, improving thermal performance and long-term reliability. The ATS superGRIP heat sink attachment system permits the use of high performance phase changing thermal interface materials that improves heat transfer by as much as 20 times more than typical double-sided adhesive thermal tapes. It also allows for the heat sink to be detached and reattached without damaging the component or the PCB, an important feature for applications where PCB rework and ease of assembly and disassembly are important. The full range of ATS products compatible with Texas Instruments products can be viewed in the new heat sink selection tool on http://qats.com/Distributor/AE-Dist.php

To learn more about maxiFLOW heat sinks and the superGRIP clip attachment, please visit www.qats.com, email [email protected], or call 781-769-2800.

2013 Webinar Calendar Released

ATS will provide two free technical webinars each month in 2013. Presented by PhD-level thermal engineers, each event will focus on an important area of electronics thermal management. The tutorials will provide practical training and insights for all engineers, designers and program managers who want to learn more about electronics cooling.

Most of the ATS webinars are scheduled to run no longer than 15 minutes in respect to the time demands on todays engineers. But each quarter of 2013 will conclude with a one-hour event that presents deeper training on a crucial heat management topic.

Every webinar is free of charge. Attendees can submit questions during the live presentations. For later viewing, each webinar will be archived on the ATS website for free streaming at the engineers convenience. Questions and comments to the recorded webinars will be responded to by ATS engineers.

ATS Webinars

Here are the 2013 ATS webinar dates, run times and titles:

Jan 9: What is the Thermal Management of Electronics?

Jan 23: Thermal Interface Material Overview: Pros and Cons

Feb 13: Calculating Junction Temperature in Electronics Cooling

Feb 27: Important Factors When Doing Heat Sink Design

Mar 13: Analytical Modeling for Thermal Analysis

Mar 27: Heat Sink Materials: Choices and Tradeoffs

Apr 10: LED Cooling: Whats So Hot about LEDs?

Apr 24: LED Cooling: Analytical Thermal Analysis

May 8: LED Cooling: Computational Thermal Analysis

May 22: LED Cooling: Physical Thermal Analysis

Jun 12: Heat Sink Fin Spacing for Heat Transfer Optimization

Jun 26: Temperature Measurements Within Electronic Systems

Jul 10: Heat Sink Types: Pros and Cons

Jul 24: Heat Sink Manufacturing Processes

Aug 14: Thermal Conductivity: What It Is and Why You Should Care

Aug 28: How to Perform Pressure Drop Calculations

All webinars are on Wednesdays at 2pm. Please visit www.qats.com/training to view the entire list of webinars, on-demand webinars in the archive, and to register for the full hour, live tutorials.

Monthly Qpedia Issue Just Released!

Qpedia_oct_coverThe October issue of Qpedia Thermal eMagazine has just been released and can be downloaded at: http://www.qats.com/Qpedia-Thermal-eMagazine/Back-Issues. Hot articles this month include:

Basic Finite Volume Concepts in CFD

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has become an essential tool in modern engineering analysis and thermal management, leading to faster solutions and an increase in productivity. It is also a very rich field that has benefitted from decades of work to improve its accuracy and speed. In this article, the author offers a high level overview of a special kind of numerical scheme in CFD. The intent is to familiarize readers with the very basics of CFD, so hopefully they can have a better appreciation of what is behind the commercial codes.

Micropumps – For Tomorrow’s Portable Electronics

Electronic devices such as tablets and ultrabooks have become more and more compact while maintaining high computing performance, and this has driven demand for innovative thermal management strategies. Active liquid cooling systems need be considered, even in these portable applications. These systems demand small pumps, often referred to as micropumps, which deliver the necessary pressure and flow with high reliability. This paper explores several common approaches to building micropumps.

Industry Developments: Thermoelectric Peltier Cooling

A Peltier cooler, heater or thermoelectric heat pump is a solid-state device which  transfers heat from one side to the other, with consumption of electrical energy, depending on the direction of the current. It can also be used as a temperature controller that either heats or cools. In this article, the writer provides an overview of thermo-electric cooling construction, component cooling, enclosure cooling and TEC Specs from IEC.

Heat Transfer Devices That Use Liquid As a Coolant, 2007 to 2009

Qpedia continues its review of technologies developed for electronics cooling applications. We are presenting selected patents that were awarded to developers around the world to address cooling challenges. After reading the series, you will be more aware of both the historic developments and the latest breakthroughs in both product design and applications.

 

Download the issue now.

Not a Qpedia subscriber? Subscribe Now for free at: http://www.qats.com/Qpedia-Thermal-eMagazine/Subscribe-to-Qpedia and see why over 18,000 engineers read Qpedia.