THERMALMANAGEMENT
Hot times for systems
Today’s systems aremore powerful andmore densely packed than ever. Today’s fans have to be up to the task By John Knight, Knight Electronics’Orion Fans
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What are themost common generators of heat in a typical piece of equipment?
Heat generation in an application can havemany different sources. It can be as simple as a power supply or transformer or can be a function of the final assembly such as an oven of some type or the enclosure around a high intensity lamp, for example.
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What are the consequences of heat in a typical system?
The consequences of too much heat in a system include degraded component life, de-rating of specifications, shortened product life or system failure, and damage to surrounding equipment if extreme.
What role do fans play inmanagement of heat and/or cooling?
Fans play a key role in dissipating heat within a cabinet or enclosure by either bringing fresh air into a system or evacuating heat out of a system. They have the ability to flatten out the temperature profile within a system, which benefits the system components.
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What characteristics do you build in to fans that make them so suitable for electronics equipment?
We build our fans to operate in the environments that would normally require cooling so ourmaterials are compatible with themost common temperature profiles, including Class F insulation, for our high temperature units.
We also have several different bearing systems available Vane Axial series fans Q
including sealed sleeve and sealed dual ball bearing units which are superior to open dual ball bearing units or regular sleeve bearing fans sold bymany of our competitors. This ensures a longer service life.
Stackable DCfans for enclosures In addition, we also have fans that we have designed with
IP55 protection for wet environments and also additional smart features like PWMspeed control, thermal control, tachometer outputs and alarmoutputs to notify a user of a cooling component failure.
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What issues are driving the development of fans today – smaller, faster,more powerful etc.?
Systems today are requiringmore power and generally in smaller packages. This results in a higher thermal load per cubic foot of volume in a system. The corresponding smaller product package sizes are pushing us to develop smaller and more powerful airmoving devices tomitigate the heat in these systems.
We have done just that with the development of our Vane
Axial Series of cooling fans. As an example, our previous 120mmsized DC cooling fan used tomove 120CFMof air, but with the advent of our new Vane Axial Series, the same sized fan in a 48VDC configuration nowmoves over 280CFM. We also have the same technology deployed in 60-, 80- and 92-mmsizes as well, and we continue to develop this technology in new sizes.
John Knight is vice president and generalmanager for Dallas- based Knight Electronics and Orion Fans
www.orionfans.com 30 | June 2010
www.electronics-sourcing.com
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