Thermal and flow fields in single board computer cabin systems using CFD analysis

Abstract

A detailed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of the cooling of a single board computer (SBC) cabin system is performed using the CFD software FLO EFD 9.0. Air-cooling and water-cooling are used for all major heat generating components with the attached heat sinks in it. North bridge chip, SODIMM memory module and south bridge chip are cooled by airflow. A liquid-cooling system with the microchannel heat sink is used to enhance heat transfer from the CPU. The simulation results show that all the heat generating components by this liquid-cooling system can meet their thermal design requirements. 36W CPU with H-shaped fractal-like microchannel heat sink can be maintained below 42° C at the inlet flow rate of 1.0 ml/s and pumping power of 0.06 W. Also it is decreased by 56% relative to forced air-cooling only.