What is the relationship between thermal design and structural design
Many electronic products, in their early stages, mainly focused on structural design and industrial design. But most products rely on the operation of chips to complete corresponding functions, and chips have heat consumption. So, the demand for thermal design of electronic products came out, and the issue of heat dissipation came up. What is the heat consumption? What cooling methods can be used? Which cooling method is most suitable for this product with low cost?
In general, based on the preliminary structure and PCB chip layout, a relatively feasible heat dissipation scheme can be determined. What heat dissipation method to use, selection of thermal conductive components, setting of radiator size, specifications of fans, and so on. Even in many cases, we can choose standard radiators and heat dissipation fans to solve the problem of new products and system heat dissipation. If it is not an ordinary situation, such as enclosed spaces, narrow spaces, ultra thin or elongated structures, high temperature environments, vibration environments, ultra-high power densities, etc., conventional heat dissipation methods are often limited and cannot be carried out.
For example, if a liquid cooling plate needs to be installed together with a PCB, how can a manifold be installed to reduce the efficiency? How to design allowable devices for leakage or condensation based on the installation status of the product? The heat needs to be dissipated by the product casing, and the heat sink needs to be embedded on the bottom plate. It's hard not to realize that at this point, it's no longer a problem that thermal design engineers can solve. Because it involves structural coordination. So, at this point, structural design engineers need to work together with thermal design engineers, cooperate with each other, tolerate each other, and achieve mutual success.
In fact, thermal design and structural design are both important links in product design work. At the same time, thermal design engineers must understand the basic structural design, and structural design engineers also need to have some learning and research on common heat dissipation schemes. A hardware product is a comprehensive design embodiment of various disciplines such as materials, electronics, programming, electromagnetism, structure, mechanism, mechanics, and mechanical manufacturing.
