Tag Archives: air flow

What are Fan Laws and how do you use them in thermal management design?

Posted on May 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

During a product’s life cycle a redesign may be carried out which replaces older components with new, higher powered ones. Due to the resulting higher heat flux, increased thermal management is often needed to maintain adequate component junction temperatures and reduce temperature rise within the system.  Fan Laws are useful mathematical tools to understand, compare and contrast different fan approaches.  Using Fan Laws before choosing a fan can help engineers to make solid choices to reduce cost, experimentation and time to market.  ATS’s five-page presentation on Fan Laws for thermal management which includes examples on how to use them, is a good introduction to this important engineering tool:



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Posted in Fan, Fans, thermal management

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Tony Koryban Mail Bag Archives: Which is a better fan thermal management strategy? Push air into your chassis or pull it out?

Posted on May 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

Our readers know of Tony Koryban.   He always has an interesting take or two on thermal engineering and on the topic of fans in thermal management he’s not silent.  Tony receieved this question in his mailbag on fan use and it’a an age old question:

Dear Tony,

Which is better, mounting a fan at the inlet of my chassis so it pushes the air in, or at the outlet, so it draws the air out?

Hobson
from Quandary, Minnesota

What’s your guess? Or what’s your standard practice?  Let’s give Tony a chance to answer by clicking to his answer at this link here:   Tony Koryban Mailbag Archives

…. and don’t forget, you can see Tony in person, at Cooling Zone 2010

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Posted in Fan

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ATS, Inc. announces “on demand” Webinar for Thermal Engineers: Methodologies for Fan Characterization

Posted on May 18, 2010 | Leave a comment

ATS, Inc. is announcing a new “on-demand” webinar from our thermal engineering team, “Methodologies for Fan Characterization”.  This webinar is ready for download and listening 24 hours  day from the ATS web site.

Topics covered include:

  • What are the fan types and points of application?
  • Understanding how fans operate and the effect of bypass flow on their operation
  • Fan selection
  • Fan assemblies and their implementation
  • Use of fan laws for sizing
  • Managing acoustic noise
  • Fan characterization

To take part in this webinar, just click to our site to reach the webinar at: Methodologies for Fan Characterization

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Posted in Analysis, Fan, Fan Tray, thermal management

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How to stretch a new project’s thermal management budget by optomizing PCB layout for airflow; an ATS Thermal Labs White Paper

Posted on May 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

Hardware engineers all bump into this problem eventually: The cost of the heat sink solution part of the thermal management design is out of balance with the overall programs development costs.

The first thought is, “get a cheaper heat sink”.  That’s a natural response that probably won’t work since the reason the originally chosen heat sink is so expensive is that it has a thermal resistance geared to your challenging application.  The second thought is, “get a bigger fan”.  Afterall, the chips will eventually cool down with enough air, right?  (yes your users might go deaf when you implement that bigger fan).

A better strategy within the limits of project time constraint, budget, and technical requirements for trace length, might be to consider how the PCB board can be layed out for optimal air flow.  In this ATS Thermal White Paper we talk about how to do that.  We give you specific tools and strategies.  Why do that when we could sell you a better heat sink?  Because at ATS we are passionate about cooling hot stuff down (and saving users from going deaf from larger fans).  Have a read here at our white paper: “The Effect of Compact PCB Layout on Thermal Management“.

And ATS can help you with that of course through our Engineering Consulting Services, click to learn more about us: ATS Thermal Management Design Consulting Services or tell us a bit about your project through our on-line project submission: Thermal Design On-Line Project Request

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Posted in Consulting, heat sink, Thermal Design, thermal management

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