Thermacore has released a compelling white paper on the use of passive thermal technologies to cool medical equipment and devices. Thermal management of electronics is critically important. No one wants to get a report noting you have a health problem and this is especially true if that ill-health report is wrong due to a medical equipment malfunction due to overheating.
Thermacore’s white paper notes that:
The impressive capabilities of 21st century medical technology, from imaging equipment to surgical instruments and automated immunoassays, are in many ways a tribute to the advances in microprocessor computing power. However, more power means more heat, generally in a smaller space. And as greater demands for precision and reliability are placed on medical equipment, thermal control becomes more critical.
We couldn’t agree more. Even low power processors are being packed together to provide more cores for a given application. While a 1W or 2W processor might not be much, try putting 30 of those together in a shoe box!
Thermacore has some great input about how to address thermal management in medical electronics. Visit their article at their site: Thermal Management for Today’s Medical Devices and Equipment.
If you aren’t familiar with heat pipes and how they work, our team at ATS Thermal Labs has prepared a white paper describing how and why they work; you can find a copy at ATS’s Qpedia Archives by clicking to Heat Pipes; Heat Super Conductors. ATS also does Heat Pipe development, to learn more, email Mike Haskell, one of our Senior Thermal Engineers, at sales.hq@qats.com