Electronic chip cooling in vertical configuration using fluent gambit

Abstract

In electronic equipments, thermal management is indispensable for its longevity and hence it is once of the important topics of current research. These electronic equipments are virtually synonyms with modern life, for instance appliances, instruments and computer specifications. The dissipation of heat is necessary for its proper function. The heat is generated by the resistance encountered by electric current. This has been further hastened by the continued miniaturization of electronic systems which causes increase in the amount of heat generation per unit volume by many folds. Unless proper cooling arrangement is designed, the operating temperature exceeds permissible limit. As a consequence, chances of failure get increased. A typical electronic system consists of several wire boards, known as printed circuit board (PCB), on which large numbers of components are mounted. These PCBs are housed in an enclosure to protect them from detrimental affect of environment, and also to protect users from electronic hazards. The enclosure has large number of vents on it to facilitate passage of cooling air. The flow of air over the components is maintained either by fan or by free convection generated due to heated components. The rate of the cooling of components strongly depends on the shape and size of the enclosure, and also on the shape, size and location of vents. The objective of the present study is to investigate the influences of these parameters on cooling of the components. In this project, the heat and fluid characteristics of air in a vertical channel with multiple square obstructions have been considered. The problem will be solved by using the software package FLUENT – GAMBIT. The stream lines and will be plotted for visualization and to study the heat transfer phenomena. FLUENT is a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package to simulate fluid flow problems. It uses the finite-volume method to solve the governing equations for a fluid. It provides the capability to use different physical models such as incompressible or compressible, iniviscid or viscous, laminar or turbulent, etc. Geometry and grid generation is done using GAMBIT which is the preprocessor bundled with FLUENT.