Heat Transfer Enhancement in a Smart Phone

Abstract

Smart phones are posed with heat transfer problems due to the space and weight limitation and also due to ever increasing processer speed. In this work, heat transfer in a Xiaomi Mi4i smart phone model has been studied using CFD. Studies at various operating conditions like (i) Basic operation, (ii) Usage of all applications, and (iii) Usage of internet have been considered. Certain hot spots have been identified and solutions to reduce temperature have proposed. Also, a scaled up model of the smart phone has been set up to measure the temperature distribution. It has been found that using copper and aluminium heat spreaders with sufficiently sized and numbered heat taps contributes to reduction in temperatures and thereby would be useful in using the mobile phone with lesser discomfort and yield longer life for the electronic components.