Electronic components power almost every aspect of our modern society—from our phones to manufacturing machines to traffic lights. Whether they use batteries or transformers, overheating is an ongoing issue that can cause performance issues, component damage, and even fire risk.
Thermal management helps protect those fragile electronics to keep them up and running reliably. It’s become even more critical as our products become smaller and faster and thus have a greater risk of heat build-up.
Let’s take a look at the issues heat presents and how engineers deal with it.
Challenges of Heat
Tackling overheating starts with understanding why electrical systems are prone to it. It’s all about electrical resistance and just as true for a lightbulb in your home as it is for a server rack used in the IT industry. The movement of electrons creates friction, which puts off heat.
The rule of thumb is that temp increases of just 15 degrees above 70 degrees can cut long-term reliability by 50 percent. Dealing with that small window is about more than just turning down the power. Engineers have to balance temp control against other factors, such as:
- Smaller device sizes
- Desire to cut product cost
- Performance constraints
- Advanced materials
- Strict standards
Design Solutions
One way of dealing with excessive heat is by changing up the design of a product. You want to find ways to improve the ability of the device, machine, or panel to transfer heat away from the electronics. The challenge is to do so without sacrificing space or performance.
By taking advantage of conduction, heat transfer can be dealt with by using unique materials or adding a heat sink. In large machines, heat pipes made of highly conductive metals filled with liquid absorb the heat.
Thermal grease and adhesives allow for very thin layers that can transfer heat out. Depending on their makeup, they can also serve as insulation to keep heat away from other machine parts.
With larger items like control panels, design and layout strategies are deployed to combat the heat. This involves not overcrowding the panel box and ensuring adequate space between devices inside.
Enclosure Solutions
Sometimes, it doesn’t matter the material used to build the electronics because it all has to be enclosed for other reasons. In an industrial setting, this might be to protect from shock with a control panel, while in IT, it might be to keep out dust with a server rack.
One standard method of dealing with an enclosed space is air cooling with something like a fan, which you can hear whirring inside your computer. Smart cooling systems also help by controlling the temperature in the surrounding area, like keeping a server room cold.
Electronic gear often has to be closed up to protect from the harsh environment of an industrial setting. This can make air cooling difficult as you can’t add vents to promote airflow. In these cases, filtered ventilation with a cabinet cooler makes it possible to cool and recirculate clean air inside the cabinet or panel while keeping it sealed against contaminants.
Practice Safe Thermal Management
New tech makes it possible to get a lot of electrical power into a small space but at the cost of an increase in damaging heat. Thermal management means developing strategies to combat overheating, like employing conductive materials within the device or adding external tools to circulate air or fluids for control panel or server cooling.
If you found this article helpful, check out others on our site about new technology and caring for your electronics.