Effects of Thermal Radiation for Electronic Cooling on Modified PCB Geometry under Natural Convection

Abstract

In this study, the discrete ordinates method (DOM) model is employed to estimate the effect of thermal radiation from multiple heat sources in a natural-convection flow field. It is found that the flow field around the chips can be altered by natural convection as induced by radiative heat transfer. The influence of thermal radiation is higher than 65% when the chipboard is in a vertical orientation. Furthermore, even if the chip surface temperature is only 317 K, the influence of radiative heat transfer is still up to 18%. Therefore, radiative heat transfer cannot be ignored for electronic component computational fluid dynamics simulation under natural convection.

This research work was supported by the National Science Council, Taiwan, Republic of China, under Grant NSC93-2516-S-214-001.