Posted Apr 4, 2012, by Robin Bornoff
The UK government has a policy for all year 10 or year 11 students to undertake a week’s work experience. Last week we welcomed a 15 year old student to the Mentor office where the FloTHERM and FloVENT software development is done. The student was tasked with simulating the air flow and temperature distribution in the office space using FloVENT. Using our own software to model our own offices … Read More
Tags:
Electronics Cooling,
FloVENT,
CFD,
HVAC,
thermal comfort
Posted Mar 21, 2012, by Nazita Saye
I admit it. I am a bit of an Apple junkie. It was an affair that started in the early 90s when I got my first Mac but I had to give up the habit because I married a Linux man. He declared the house an Apple-Free zone and since he was my sole source of tech support, I capitulated. But in my heart I always remained a fan. When the guys in the office brought in their iPads I looked at them jealously and … Read More
Posted Mar 7, 2012, by Nazita Saye
I grew up in Southern California where the threat of the big one is always there – by the big one I mean the big San Andreas fault earthquake which according to experts the world over is overdue by many decades. Over the weekend San Francisco got a couple of tremblers … nothing too scary but enough to remind all Californians that the big one is lurking out there. Alas so far science has … Read More
Tags:
myths of CFD,
Concurrent CFD
Posted Mar 2, 2012, by Travis Mikjaniec
The other day I was watching this show on the recent cruise ship sinking over in Italy. It was very interesting. They had ship experts looking over the data from the cruise ship, specifically GPS position and speed. One of the important factors that they said saved a lot of lives that night was the wind. After the ship had hit the underwater rocks and started taking on water, it continued out to … Read More
Tags:
FloEFD CFD Wind Ship Cruise Boat Computational Fluid Dynamics
Posted Feb 14, 2012, by Nazita Saye
Back in December I heard something on the radio that made me both sad and happy at the same time. It turns out that the last neon sign in Piccadilly Square in London was to be turned off by the end of the year. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing London at night, Piccadilly Sq is a sight to behold (for a picture click here ) The neon sign in question had been in use since 1987 and … Read More
Tags:
FloEFD,
CFD,
Thermal Characterization,
T3ster
Posted Feb 10, 2012, by Robin Bornoff
As with all good inventions, you quickly wonder how on earth you could have done without them before. Relieving thermal bottlenecks reduce temperatures; it’s so blindingly obvious. Now that we have the ability to visualise with FloTHERM exactly where the thermal bottlenecks are in a design, the job of the (overworked/underpaid) thermal design engineer just got that more productive.
Electronic … Read More
Tags:
Electronics Cooling,
bottleneck,
thermal bottleneck,
thermal chokepoint
Posted Jan 30, 2012, by Robin Bornoff
‘Bits stuck onto other bits’, a succinct definition of an electronic product, if not a product that contains electronics. Soldering is the method of choice for getting the components to attach to the pcb, the layered board that contains the metallic traces connecting component pins to other component pins. Rivets, welds, screws or bolts for the chassis, some form of gluing or sticky adhesion … Read More
Tags:
Electronics Cooling,
CFD,
thermal chokepoint,
T3ster,
thermal bottleneck
Posted Jan 22, 2012, by Robin Bornoff
By far and away the most common enquiry by someone using FloTHERM, especially at the start of their adoption, is “How do I model my components?”. This is hardly surprising as the mainstay of electronics thermal management is the control of operating component temperatures (junction and/or case). A virtual prototyping design by simulation approach requires models of components capable of such predictions. … Read More
Tags:
NXP Semiconductors,
Electronics Cooling
Posted Jan 18, 2012, by Robin Bornoff
Probably due to the beer fridge, I now seem to be becoming the repository of broken electronic products with an expectation that the cause of their demise can be identified, retrospectively, using thermal simulation. This week my good colleague John Parry dumped a rather poorly DVD player on my desk with a ‘go on then’ look. There’s nothing quite like the sight of a scorched PCB to … Read More
Tags:
bottleneck,
Electronics Cooling,
beer,
thermal interface material,
TIM,
thermal bottleneck
Posted Jan 17, 2012, by Travis Mikjaniec
It’s that time of the year, when the weather turns cold and people start to think about winterizing their home to reduce heating costs. Usually it takes the first winter heating bill to provide the motivation to undertake this task. With this in mind, I would like to talk about pipe insulation. Specifically, the foam wrap insulation you can find at any hardware store (http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202318552/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053)
In … Read More
Tags:
FloEFD,
Heat Transfer,
CFD,
pipe,
Home Improvement,
insulation
