Application of CFD in the Electronics Industry

Don’t Just Simulate, Innovate!

CFD Electronics

Electronics Applications in STAR-CCM+

1. Forced Convection Cooling of computer power supply
2.  Passive (Natural) cooling of an outdoor construction radio
3. Liquid-cooled cold plate for Power Electronics
4.  Component-Level simulation
5. Board-Level Simulation
6. System Level Simulation
7. Data Center/ Rooms Cooling/ Architectural
8. Altitude Performace sweep of Avionics Chassis
9. Air-cooled Heat sink optimization
10. Electrical-thermal coupled simulation of the lighting circuit
11. Fan & Blower Acoustics
12. IGBT Liquid-Cooled Heat Sink
13. Fogging/ De-fogging of Automotive Headlamp
14. Thermal radiation effects in an Ultra-high Pressure Lamp
15. LED light bulb thermal performance 
16. Silicon Wafer Cleaning
17. Solar telescope heat stop design
18. Spray Cooling of an Electric Motor

Why is CFD Electronics Cooling Simulation Necessary Today?

System Complexity

1. Increase inboard and component level complexity
2. Development of interdependent systems of systems

Reliability Requirements

1. Avoid costly system failures
2. Eliminate product recalls and resulting reputational damage

Time-to-Market Pressure

1. Maximize addressable market
2. Increase development pace through digital design/test

Improve product performance

1. Optimize the performance of the thermal management system
2. Quickly identify the causes of poor performance/failures
3. Reduce power consumption

Reduce development time and cost

1. Leverage simulation earlier in the design cycle
2. Reduce turnaround time to evaluate each proposed design
3. Minimize the need for prototyping

1. Flexible Geometry Creation

1. Import geometry data from a variety of sources
2. Create geometry from scratch using templated components
3. Easily modify existing geometry

2. Automated Simulation Setup

1. Intuitive GUI
2. Minimal number of clicks to set up
3. Automated setup with fewer inputs

3. Streamlined Post Processing

1. Easily visualize simulation results
2. Quickly measure key performance metrics

4. Design Space Exploration

1. Quickly test many design variants
2. Evaluate performance over a range of operating conditions

5. Ability to Model Complex Physics

1. “Headroom” to add extra fidelity to baseline simulation with complex physical phenomena

1. Multiphase flow phenomena
2. Interaction with control systems and other external influences

Innovation Through Design Exploration

With STAR-CCM+ You Are Able to Automate The Design Exploration and Optimization Process

E-Cool – Electronics Cooling Toolset in Simcenter STAR-CCM+

• The Electronics cooling toolset (E-Cool)
• Simplified simulation tree
• Quickparts
• Built-in best-practice settings
• Single click automatic meshing
• Templated Scenes and Reports
• Access to the full Simcenter STAR-CCM+ feature set
• Importing and creating geometries
• Design Manager

Electronic Cooling Toolset (E-Cool)

E-Cool is a specialized environment in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ for the electronics industry:

• Easily accessed via a toolbar button
• Provides a dedicated workflow for quick and efficient simulation setup, run and analysis
• Automatic setup with minimal user input

Simplified Simulation Tree

A more focused environment promotes a more efficient and easy to learn workflow:

• Only the tools relevant to electronics cooling are exposed in the E-Cool simulation tree
• The cut-down tree provides a cleaner and more efficient and focused user experience

Quickparts

• Quickparts contain both geometry and physical attributes for each component:
• Can be imported or created directly in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ from parametric templates
• Variety of component types represented including heatsink, chip, PCB, enclosure and axial or radial fans
• Templated components are parameterized to allow quick design changes and optimization
• Once created, a quick part automatically interfaces with the other components in the simulation

Built-in best practice settings

• Best-practice mesh and solver settings for heat transfer simulations are automatically applied by the tool
• User should not need to change anything to get an acceptable first run
• Settings are editable to allow the user to control speed or accuracy as desired

Automatic meshing

• No user input required to create a basic mesh
• Size based on basic geometry dimensions
• Uses trimmed mesh for a good balance of speed, robustness, and accuracy
• Local mesh refinement can be added where necessary
• In-place contacts created automatically

Templated scenes, plots, and reports

• Assess and understand product performance by visualizing the flow and thermal behavior
• Easily generate reports to quantify component performance:
• The user chooses field and component
• The report returns min, max, volumetric mean
• 2D plotting supported:
• Evaluate design variations
• Make comparisons with experimental data

Access to the full Simcenter STAR-CCM+ feature set

• E-Cool is a streamlined environment for the basic setup of electronics cooling simulations
• The full power of Simcenter STAR-CCM+ can be accessed at any time:
• Complex flow phenomena (including phase change and advanced turbulence models)
• Multiphysics (including solid Stress and aeroacoustics)
• Advanced Post processing (including volume rendering)
• Interaction with other tools / systems / controls through Co-Simulation

Importing and creating geometries

Geometry files can be imported from a variety of sources:

• Intermediate Data Format (IDF) files import supported
• Options to filter components on import
• Multiple CAD formats supported:
• Native: NX, Solidedge, Catia, Solidworks, Inventor, Creo, Rhino
• Neutral: Parasolid, Step, Iges, VDA, ACIS
• Generic geometries can be created directly using built-in templated components

Design Manager

E-Cool can leverage design manager for design exploration:

• Parameter sweeps:
• Verify thermal performance over a full operation range
• Characterize the performance of the cooling system
• Improve designs using best-in-class optimization algorithm:
• No tuning of parameters required
• No expertise in optimization techniques needed
• Quickly reduce design space to focus on a few key designs

Improve product performance, Reduce development time and cost

• Dedicated productivity tool for electronics cooling applications
• Automated setup incorporating established best practices
• Streamlined workflow from geometry definition to visualization and analysis
• Parameterized components enable design exploration
• Extend simulation scope, leveraging the full power of Simcenter STAR-CCM+