Heatsink Enclosures

Jiaxing Lantu Chassis Co., Ltd. is located in Haiyan County, Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province. It is a company engaged in the design, production and professional production of precision metal molds: aluminum shells, aluminum profile shells, communication chassis chassis, 19-inch chassis, non-standard chassis, hardware for The main well-known enterprises. It is widely used in electronics, instruments, meters, industrial control, communications, medicine, aerospace and other fields.

Heatsink enclosures provide a way of removing heat from inside a metal enclosure by heat transfer methods. Heat sink metal enclosures are manufactured using extrusion methods and therefor can be made in custom lengths. Heatsink metal enclosures are ideal for electronic systems than can generate a lot of heat such as power systems and management, small computers and processors. The extrusion process allows for the production of heat sink metal enclosures in any desired length and with any desired protection class (IP67 or IP68). Electronic devices that create a lot of heat, such as power systems, compact computers, and microprocessors, benefit significantly from being housed in metal heat sink enclosures.

Maybe the temperatures aren't as low as desired for the component, even if the heat sink computer design calculations were accurately performed. There are other ways of bringing the temperature down that work in conjunction with the heat sink. Some of the key definitions to remember when designing a heat sink are:

Thermal heat sink compound conditions
The goal is to not only have a well-rated thermal heat sink compound, but also want to ensure it is only as thick as it needs to be to fill the gap between the component and heat sink. If the gap is too thick, it may slow heat transfer.

Natural and forced convection
Since a heat sink works by dispersing heat to the surrounding air, the process can be improved by moving that free air into forced convection air parallel to the heat sink fins by the use of a heatsink fan. Using forced air convection significantly increases the rate of heat transfer. This forced convection will lower the effective thermal resistance of the heat sink, while ensuring that the ambient air remains at a lower temperature. On that same note, if the heat sink is packaged in a very small package with restricted air flow, natural convection is hampered and may reduce the effectiveness of the heat sink.
Selecting the proper heat sink type and heat sink material are important factors in ensuring the reliable operation of the design. The formulas and examples in this article should provide a starting point for improving the thermal management of the designed product. Be sure to download our free heat sink calculator to apply these skills and even read more about heat and design transfer and fluid dynamics.
The most efficient heat sink design from a geometrical standpoint is one that contains fins or pins to increase the surface area for heat transfer.
Copper is one of the best materials to choose for heat sinks as it has a high thermal conductivity. But aluminum is most commonly used due to it's lower cost and relatively high thermal conductivity.
A heat sink design can be improved by adding fans or pins, choosing an alternative material, or adding in forced cooling via convection.
A heat sink works by absorbing thermal energy in the surrounding environment from electrical component inefficiency via the conduction method of heat transfer.

As an example, we will take a device designed for our customer. He could choose metal or plastic as a primary material for the device enclosure. After doing thermal calculations, it became clear that there is no need to dissipate heat on the enclosure, so we do not need metal. We can use a cheaper and more practical option - plastic + standard heatsink. And now we need to answer an important question: where to place holes in our enclosure and how many of them to ensure passive cooling of electronics? This question can be answered by calculations, taking into account the heating of electronic components. Calculation models help you choose the best enclosure model. In our case, it is the second one, with large perforations on the bottom.
Not always the most apparent solutions turn out to be so in practice. It could seem that complete perforation will provide the best cooling, and the worst ones will be with no perforation at all. But modelling lets you know the honest answer.

Double enclosure for convection
Below is another example of natural convection cooling. The mechanical design of the enclosure consists of two parts: the inner part with multiple perforations along the entire contour for free cooling airflow and the outer enclosure, which is decorative, with perforations only on the back.

Cooling by thermal conduction
Thermal conduction cooling uses direct metal-to-metal contact between two parts. The heat from heated components is transferred to the outer surfaces of your heat-dissipating enclosure (or its parts) by thermal conduction.

Heat dissipation to an enclosure
Sometimes not only tubes or screens are used for cooling, but the entire device enclosure takes the "heat shock". Of course, the best material for this task is aluminium.

Forced convection cooling
So far, we have covered natural convection for cooling, now let's look at forced convection, a more expensive but more common method of dissipating heat from electronics.

One of the best approaches a designer can take to overcome this problem is to run a thermal simulation on the electronics enclosure before the actual product is manufactured. This simulation can help find answers to many critical questions: How effective is the cooling system? What possible design changes need to be implemented? How does the selected material impact the heat transfer behavior? And many more, depending on the nature of your product.

The need to manufacture safer and more compact electronic devices is challenging engineers across the globe to create extraordinary designs. In the traditional design process, the only way to ensure the durability of a novel electronic product is to perform a high number of design iterations until all criteria are met. This implies a high number of physical prototypes and a time-consuming and expensive physical testing process.

In addition to the number of design iterations, the stage at which design changes need to be implemented is equally important; the earlier in the overall process, the more cost-effectively a design change can be realized. The later the stage, the scope of possible design changes narrows drastically, with only small, incremental design modifications possible.

Of course, physical tests cannot (and should not) be entirely eliminated from the product design process. Physical and virtual prototyping are not mutually exclusive-they are complementary. But with computer-aided engineering (CAE) the days, weeks, or months of physical testing are replaced with hours or even minutes of a simulation run.

This is just one example of how thermal simulation can help designers or engineers evaluate their design using simulation. Use the free project template of the case study in this article if you are interested in how additional design changes would impact thermal performance.