Mechanical Analysis Blog

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

bottleneck, Electronics Cooling, beer, thermal interface material, TIM, thermal bottleneck

For a blog series focused on thermal design there has been precious little design presented so far. Design is the process of making a plan for the construction of an object/product. Whether you subscribe to the rational or action-centric model of the design process, some form of iteration and adaption is used to arrive at a design that is fit for production. Trying an idea, seeing it fail, finding out … Read More

bottleneck, Electronics Cooling, beer, fridge, vent, Fan

All good things come to those who wait. For beer this entails a trade off between anticipation and satisfaction. If, too soon after you put the room temperature beer in the fridge, you get your child to grab a beer for you, your thirst might be quenched but your satisfaction might not be. Wait too long for it to cool down and you might forget you wanted one, or go to sleep, or hit the whisky instead. … Read More

Electronics Cooling, time constant, beer, Transient

As the ancient proverb goes; a beer fridge without beer is like X Factor, utterly pointless. You’d have thought that by clogging up the insides of the fridge with pesky cans of beer you’d cripple it’s thermal performance. As someone once said of Simon Cowell …”O, how wrong you are”. When modelling a can of beer in FloTHERM, in fact when modelling any part or object, … Read More

Electronics Cooling, beer

The futility of investigating the cooling effectiveness of any empty fridge is beginning to dawn on me, the irony of which is matched only by my new-years-resolution-inspired-sobriety. Never mind, let’s see this particular study through…  Whether in a beer ridden fury or in moments of Galilean scientific investigation, you might find yourself kicking the fridge over on to its side or even … Read More

Electronics Cooling, beer

Beer drinkers are notoriously quiet people and as such would not want to be disturbed by the continuous hissing and whirring of a classic compression/expansion refrigeration cycle type beer fridge. They would argue that’s why both kids and kitchens were invented. Kitchens to put the noisy fridge in, kids to go get the next beer. Electric coolers, fridges that utilise thermoelectric coolers (TECs) … Read More

fridge, thermoelectric cooler, TEC, Electronics Cooling, beer

My boss, Roland, relocated from Germany to the UK a couple of years ago and has taken to life in England with alacrity. As a gift for the Mechanical Analysis product development department (Hampton Court) he bought a little fridge which has been busy ever since cooling the beer in it that everyone has been too polite to drink. A few weeks ago it stopped working. Some inquisitive minds and a couple of … Read More

Electronics Cooling, beer