Mechanical Analysis Blog

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

Electronics Cooling, bottleneck, thermal bottleneck, thermal chokepoint

‘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

Electronics Cooling, CFD, thermal chokepoint, T3ster, thermal bottleneck

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

Here at the Mechanical Analysis Department we love FloTHERM and we love developing FloTHERM to ensure it keeps up with the needs and follows the trends of the electronic thermal simulation market. The latest release of FloTHERM, V9.1, has a wealth of features and benefits that continues to ensure it’s position as the #1 CFD based software tool used for such purposes. Here are the top 8… Direct … Read More

v9.1, v9, Bn, bottleneck, Add new tag, Icepak, thermal bottleneck, Electronics Cooling

Simulation has, to date, focused primarily on the prediction of an operating state that is compared to a design acceptable state to judge the compliance of that design. From an electronics cooling perspective that state is often taken as the operating temperature of packaged ICs, most commonly a case (Tc) or junction (Tj) temperature. FloTHERM has, over the last 21 years, excelled in such predictions. … Read More

Electronics Cooling, CFD, thermal bottleneck