Category Archives: CFD

New Electronics Cooling Webinars are Open for Second Quarter of 2012

Posted on April 3, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Each month during the second quarter of 2012, ATS will present a technical webinar covering different topics within the dynamic world of electronics cooling. Each of these one-hour, online tutorials will include detailed visuals, definitions, instructions, case studies and references. One or more ATS PhD-level thermal engineers will be presenting live. Viewers will be able to key in questions during and after the presentation.

Each Q2 webinar is planned for a Thursday afternoon (ET) late in the month. These are the second quarter topics for the ATS webinars:

April 26, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. ET

How to Perform and Understand Air Velocity Measurement within Electronics Systems

Participants will learn about the importance of measuring air velocity in a system, the instruments necessary for obtaining useful measurements and where these velocities should be recorded.

May 24, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. ET

CFD as a Tool to Perform Heat Sink and System Modeling

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools have become indispensable simulation tools, enabling design engineers to confront electronics cooling challenges on demand. Some tips and tricks are invaluable in performing these analyses. Among them: the simplest methods of preparing a CFD model; the best techniques for meshing; and how to model a systems components, such as fans and perforated plates. Attendees will learn about common and not-so-common issues in CFD, and how to overcome them.

June 28, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. ET

Heat Sink Selection Made Easy

As heat dissipation needs for electronic devices rapidly grow, choosing the right heat sink the first time is essential. With so many application requirements and heat sink options, this can be a daunting task. In this webinar, attendees will learn about the importance of system airflow and its impact on heat sink design; attachment methods; and how to solve thermal design challenges.

Seats at each of these webinars are free, but limited. Registration is available online at http://www.qats.com, or by calling 1-781-949-2522.

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Posted in CFD, heat sink, Sensor, thermal management, Training, Webinar

Webinar TODAY 2pm: Tips, Tricks and Techniques for the Best Use of CFD for Heat Sink and System Modeling

Posted on November 3, 2011 by | Leave a comment

We’re holding another webinar today, November 3rd, at 2PM EST “Tips, Tricks and Techniques for the Best Use of CFD for Heat Sink and System Modeling” In our webinar we’ll cover what we do at ATS in our use of CFD as part of our overall thermal analysis work. We think you’ll learn some of what we do so you can apply it to your own work.

You can register at no cost to you at this link:  https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/738227666

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Posted in CFD, Webinar

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How to Control Spreading Thermal Resistance

Posted on October 26, 2011 by | 3 comments

One of the basic concepts of electronics cooling is effective transfer of heat from semiconductor devices to the ambient using heat sinks or other cooling technologies. The effectiveness of this approach depends on a systems total thermal resistance, which is composed of discrete thermal resistances on the path of heat from the source to the ambient. One of these resistances is spreading resistance.

Spreading resistance occurs whenever a small heat source comes in contact with the base of a larger heat sink. The heat does not distribute uniformly through the heat sink base, and consequently does not transfer efficiently to the fins for convective cooling. Figure 1 shows a CFdesign® simulation solution for such an occurrence. The spreading resistance phenomenon is shown by how the heat travels through the center of a heat sink base causing a large temperature gradient between the center and edges of the heat sink.

graph showing temperature distribution at the base of a heat sinkFigure 1: CFdesign solution showing temperature distribution
at the base of a heat sink

Spreading resistance is an increasingly important issue in thermal management as microelectronic packages become more powerful and compact and larger heat sinks are required to cool these devices. In high heat flux applications, spreading resistance can comprise 60 to 70% of the total thermal resistance.

A good estimate of spreading resistance is required to manage heat effectively using conventional air-cooled heat sinks. There have been a number of theoretical and experimental studies to estimate spreading resistance. Two of the most notable methods belong to Yovanovich et al. [1] and to Gordon N. Ellison [2].

While these extensive studies cover all aspects of spreading resistance, they involve cumbersome infinite series and complicated coefficient terms.  (click the link to read the rest of our article here on our electronics cooling blog)

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Posted in CFD, Thermal Analysis, thermal management, Thermal Science

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Free, Quick, One Page List of Our Best Practice Using CFD

Posted on June 23, 2011 by | Leave a comment

As part of our webinar today, we’ll be talking about some best practices we use at ATS when we perform CFD. We thought we’d share the list here with our readers and followers:

  1. Get a full understanding of the software’s capabilities before launching analysis
  2. Understand and develop accurate boundary conditions
  3. Perform analytical analysis before starting CFD simulations
  4. Brute force complete modeling is only a sign of a neophyte always look for the lines of symmetry to see how you can reduce your model size
  5. Not doing mesh sensitivity analysis is like committing a cardinal sin. Such analysis is a cornerstone of obtaining accurate answers
  6. Believing your CFD results w/o validation (second independent solution, is like believing in magic. Any analysis, whether done by simulation, analytical or experimental, must be validated

We’ll be Live Tweeting our webinar “CFD Tips and Tricks” today. The hashtag is #ats_cfd

If you haven’t signed up yet, here’s the link: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/300959811

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Posted in CFD, Thermal Analysis, thermal management

CFD Webinar on Tips, Tricks and Techniques for the Best Use of CFD for Heat Sink and System Modeling: Sponsored by Future Facilities

Posted on June 21, 2011 by | Comments Off on CFD Webinar on Tips, Tricks and Techniques for the Best Use of CFD for Heat Sink and System Modeling: Sponsored by Future Facilities

Just a reminder to followers of our electronics cooling blog that we’ll be having a free webinar on Thursday, June 23, 2PM EST on the “Tips, Tricks and Techniques for the Best Use of CFD for Heat Sink and System Modeling”.

future facilities datacenter cfd

Our CFD webinar this month is sponsored by Future Facilities. Passionate about data center simulation Future Facilities is a privately-owned company formed in 2004 with a simple mission: to ensure every datacenter can be a model datacenter. One where risk is mitigated and energy efficiency maximized while both capital and operational costs are reduced to the absolute minimum.

Future Facilities’ senior team boasts several acknowledged experts in the design and application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software for the datacenter industry. And in June 2006, after two and a half years of painstaking R&D, they have launched 6SigmaDC a suite of integrated software products that tackles head-on the challenges of datacenter lifecycle engineering through the Virtual Facility (VF).

Future Facilities has offices based in the heart of London, just a stone throw from the Houses of Parliament. They also have offices in San Jose,United States, and Tokyo, Japan.

See this video for a preview of what we’ll cover in our CFD webinar as well as some best practices we use at ATS:

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Posted in CFD, Webinar