The effects of the outlet area and the location of the main power supply unit on the cooling capability through naturally air-cooled electronic equipment casings

Abstract

This paper describes a practical thermal design approach to natural air-cooled electronic equipment casings. A set of simplified equations for the thermal design of natural air-cooled electronic equipment casings has been proposed. The proposed set of equations satisfied the demand of practical air-cooling systems, since it takes account of factors such as the stack effect, the air flow resistance and the heat transfer due to natural convection. The effects of the outlet area and the location of the main power supply unit on the natural cooling capability of electronic equipment casings were studied using a set of equations. The results have shown that a uniform temperature distribution could be achieved when the main power supply unit was placed at the bottom of the casing. It has also been suggested that the value of the heat removed from the casing surface could be more significant than that from the outlet vent in the thermal design of natural air-cooled electronic equipment casings.

Keywords

thermal design of electronic equipment natural convection flow resistance coefficient outlet vent area effect power supply unit location

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