Tag Archives: CFD

New Consulting Project Subscription Plan

ATS has released a Consulting Project Subscription Plan (CPSP) for engineering services. From our corporate headquarters in Norwood, Massachusetts,we offers comprehensive thermal management analysis and design services for the telecommunications, medical, military, defense, aerospace, automotive, and embedded computing industries. The new plan allows ATS engineers to become an extension of your team for a pre-determined amount of hours, providing expert thermal and mechanical engineering consultation, design, simulation, testing and validation.

ATS Design Services

Services include Design, Simulation, Testing, Analysis & Prototyping

The CPSP includes the use of ATS thermal lab facilities and covers all projects approved by an authorized representative of subscribed customers. ATS thermal management analysis and design services encompass both experimental and computational simulations using proprietary tools and computational fluid dynamics software packages such as FLOTHERM and CFdesign.

Thermal Testing & Analysis

Thermal Testing & Analysis

The new subscription plan gives customers priority access to ATS engineering and manufacturing resources for all chip, board, enclosure, and system related projects. ATS studies the full packaging domain, including components, circuit boards (PCBs), shelves, chassis, and system packaging.

Consulting capabilities include:

– heat sink, board and fan characterization

– heat sink design and optimization

– PCB & fan tray design and optimization

– liquid cooling design

– prototyping of heat sinks and complete cooling systems

– wind tunnel testing of components, PCBs, chassis and enclosures

ATS offers rapid prototyping of machined parts and cooling systems from its US facilities. Sheet metal fabrication and cut heat sink prototypes are quickly provided from international partners.

Liquid Crystal Thermography

Liquid Crystal Thermography

ATS believes that customers who wish to remain competitive should consider a design-to-suit opportunity solution first. Contrary to common perception, this proves to be less expensive to the customer in the long run, because of the ensuing gain in product efficiency and compatibility. Working side-by-side with customers worldwide, ATS engineers provide tailored solutions to thermal and mechanical packaging challenges on real projects with real schedules.

To learn more about the consulting project subscription plan, call 781-769-2800, email ats-hq@qats.com, or visit www.qats.com.

Learn How to Cool Consumer Electronics in our February 23rd Webinar

Thermal Management of Consumer Electronics” is the topic of our next webinar, on Thursday, February 23rd, 2PM EST. The free webinar will cover:

Consumer electronics are now being used in places that were once exclusive to business and military electronics. Products like Apple’s iPhone and iPad are sophisticated technologies with powerful processors housed in small spaces with restricted airflow. As a result, these devices, and others like them, are providing many new benefits, but they also bring higher thermal management needs. Attendees will learn the available cooling options, and important factors such as the importance of spreading resistance in component and system thermal management.

The webinar is going to be chock full of great information cooling consumer electronics. The webinar is free and taught by Dr. Kaveh Azar, one of the worlds foremost authorities on heat transfer. Click here to register: “Thermal Management of Consumer Electronics

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

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

How to Control Spreading Thermal Resistance

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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How to optimize your heat sink and more in this month’s Qpedia Thermal eJournal

Qpedia Thermal eJournal, our publication on all things related to thermal management and electronics cooling is hot off the presses! This months Qpedia features articles on:

  • Getting the Most Out of Your Heat Sink Design: An Overview of the Parameters Which Influence Your Design
  • CFD Simulation of Jet Impingement
  • Spray Cooling Electronics in a 1-U Chassis
  • Transient Response of a PCM with Embedded Graphite Nanofibers

Get your copy right away, for no charge, by clicking to Qpedia Thermal eJournal