ABOUT
Heat removal has long been an issue for engineers. Energy is often materialized in the form of heat, and if it is not maintained properly it could cause catastrophic failure for a design or project. In this case of this project, Unison Industries is designing electrical components for a small aircraft; however, the silicon chips aboard the electrical components generate 300W of heat. If not removed, this heat could build up and cause the chip temperatures to rise above their maximum allowable temperature of 150C. Usually one would open a heat-sink manufacturer’s product manual and select one rated for the given parameters, but Unison Industries wishes to keep the weight as low as possible due to the aviation aspect of this project. More weight added means more thrust required from the engines which would ultimately mean more money required for the design. For this reason, Unison Industries has commissioned Team 19 with designing a heat-sink capable of removing 300W of heat using forced-air convection, maintaining a chip temperature below 135C, and being as light weight as possible without sacrificing any of the previous parameters. In order to achieve this, Team 19 took a standard heat-sink, placed it in the given conditions of 85C ambient temperature and 300W of heat being dissipated from the chips, and measured its performance using a thermal imaging camera. From the images gathered from the thermal imaging camera, Team 19 was able to determine what parts of the heat-sink were vital to heat transfer, and what parts were not contributing at all. The non-contributing parts of the heat sink were removed, and the new geometry was tested again. This process was iterated several more times until the images from the thermal imaging camera proved that the heat-sink was uniformly contributing to heat transfer. This process ensures that the final design is as light weight as possible.
