A Complete Guide to Enclosure Thermal Design - 14 Key Considerations

Designing an enclosure to ensure heat is dissipated efficiently away from electronics to the surroundings is important to keep components within suitable temperatures to ensure product performance and reliability. 

Learn how to improve enclosure design in this guide covering 14 considerations on thermal management best practices, from cooling options and selection through to design considerations. Examples are presented using CFD simulation results to illustrate the need to understand airflow and heat transfer within electronics enclosures. 

Areas of design to focus on for advantages in cooling efficiency are illustrated and also where tradeoff decisions need to be made. This guide aids engineers designing enclosures for various applications from consumer tablets and smartphones, to automotive electronics and avionics, through to servers and data centers.

Topics:

• Early architecture to detailed design - assessing cooling options and performance
• Best practices for passive cooling, forced convection fan cooling through to sealed systems
• Fan selection, venting, use of plenums, phase change materials & more
• Transient modeling to evaluate thermal controls