Air Guide Element for Uniform Heat Sink Cooling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing cooling devices with axial fans and heat sinks experience inefficient airflow distribution between cooling fins, leading to varying flow speeds and less effective cooling of heat-emitting components.
Innovation Solution
An air guiding element with strategically placed guide vanes around the fan axis, designed to optimize airflow by deflecting it parallel to the fan axis and enhancing swirl flow, ensures uniform flow rates between cooling fins, thereby improving cooling efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of energy
If an axial fan conveys ambient air through cooling fins, then heat dissipation is improved, but airflow distribution between individual cooling fins becomes non-uniform
Solution Approach 1:
A swirl generator is introduced as an intermediary component between the axial fan and the cooling fins. This device modifies the airflow pattern by generating a controlled swirl that actively promotes uniform distribution of air across all cooling fin gaps, resolving the non-uniformity problem while maintaining effective heat dissipation
2Area of stationary object
If cooling fins are arranged radially to maximize surface area, then heat transfer efficiency is improved, but airflow velocity becomes non-uniform across different gaps
Solution Approach 1:
The swirl generator acts as a mediating device that compensates for the non-uniform airflow patterns created by radial cooling fin arrangement. By introducing a controlled rotational component to the airflow, it ensures that all cooling fins receive relatively uniform air supply, maintaining both large surface area and uniform flow distribution
3Productivity
If fan blades are designed to maximize air conveyance, then overall airflow rate is improved, but flow speed varies significantly in different directions
Solution Approach 1:
The swirl generator serves as a flow-conditioning intermediary that takes the high-volume but non-uniform airflow from the fan blades and redistributes it uniformly across the cooling fin array. It converts the directional bias in airflow into a balanced radial distribution pattern
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution achieves uniform airflow distribution and increased cooling efficiency across all gaps between cooling fins, enhancing the overall cooling performance of heat-emitting components.
Implementation Method 1
an axial fan (1) which conveys ambient air along a fan axis (A) in the direction of the heat sink (3)
Implementation Method 2
the air flowing into the base plate (5) between the individual cooling fins (4) and being deflected by 90 degrees
Implementation Method 3
The heat transfer from the heat-radiating components to the ambient air is dependent on the temperature difference, the effective surface of the heat sink and the flow rate between the air and the heat sink
Implementation Method 4
heat-radiating components
Data Source
Figure 1~2
Figure 3
Figure 4~5
AI summary
Device for cooling heat-radiating components comprising a heat sink (3) with a plurality of cooling fins (4) arranged straight and parallel to each other along a longitudinal axis (L), an axial fan (1) for conveying cooling air in a main conveying direction (F) along a fan axis (A), wherein the axial fan (1) is arranged on the heat sink (3) and the fan axis (A) is oriented transversely to the longitudinal axis (L), and an air guide element (2) arranged to influence the airflow between the axial fan (1) and the heat sink (3).