Thermal dissipation of an LED PCB
Thermal dissipation of an LED PCB
(OP)
I am looking to do simulate thermal dissipation from an LED PCB with a large heat sink with fins. I was wondering if there was software (freeware or trial) that would allow me to accomplish this without having to upgrade to Solidworks Premium.






RE: Thermal dissipation of an LED PCB
TOP
CSWP, BSSE
www.engtran.com www.niswug.org
"Node news is good news."
RE: Thermal dissipation of an LED PCB
RE: Thermal dissipation of an LED PCB
RE: Thermal dissipation of an LED PCB
Rob Stupplebeen
RE: Thermal dissipation of an LED PCB
http://www.frigprim.com/index.html
Harold
SW2009 SP4.0 OPW2009 SP2 Win XP Pro 2002 SP3
Dell 690, Xeon 5160 @3.00GHz, 3.25GB RAM
nVidia Quadro FX4600
www.lumenflow.com
RE: Thermal dissipation of an LED PCB
RE: Thermal dissipation of an LED PCB
RE: Thermal dissipation of an LED PCB
You need to know what your environment around the heat sink will be. Are you going to be inside another enclosure, such as a light fixture? Is your heat sink exposed to open air.
RE: Thermal dissipation of an LED PCB
I would also not look just at the SW solutions, but look at 3rd party solutions to this. There are a number of good ones that will be just as cost effective if not more so than Simulation.
TOP
CSWP, BSSE
www.engtran.com www.niswug.org
"Node news is good news."
RE: Thermal dissipation of an LED PCB
You will need to know some information about the environment, since the temperature and convection coefficient of the air flow affects the thermal resistance of your finned array. You may find that passive cooling is enough (ie. you may not need a fan to cool this component - this is worth finding out!).
In addition to the above comments, I always find it a good rule to "design it like you're going to do it again." I usually end up with handy Excel references or MATLAB scripts that I can reuse to solve similar problems later. This turns out to be a valuable time saver more often than not, even if it takes incrementally more time to create at first.
Also, it sounds like the dimensions you have given are relatively firm. In that case, you know that you have 1/2" long fins, and have only to select the number and cross section of these fins or pins. At this point, it's up to you to optimize the fin or pin design to suit the design requirement (thermal resistance), and the capabilities of your manufacturer.