Cooling powerful electronics outdoors is tough. When a client needed a solution for four 4kW IGBT modules—a massive 16kW of heat—we designed a custom air-cooled heat sink that beat their expectations. Here’s a quick look at how we did it.
| Project Snapshot | Details |
|---|---|
| The Core Problem | Cooling four 4kW IGBT modules (16kW total) in an outdoor environment. |
| Initial Idea (Scrapped) | A liquid-cooled plate, which was not suitable for outdoor risks like freezing and leaks. |
| The Winning Solution | A custom air-cooled, skived fin heat sink using advanced heat pipe technology. |
| Final Performance | The IGBT junction temperature was kept stable at 107°C, far below the 120°C safety limit. |
The Big Challenge: Keeping a Powerful IGBT Module Cool
Imagine a tiny, powerful engine that controls electricity. That’s an IGBT module. They are essential for modern electronics, but they get extremely hot. A customer came to us with a big task: create a cooling system for their IGBT module that produces up to 4,000 watts of heat.
To put that in perspective, that’s like four powerful microwave ovens running at full blast in a very small space! And they planned to use four of these modules together.
Our First Idea: Why Liquid Cooling Seemed Perfect
At first, we thought a liquid-cooled plate was the best answer. Think of it like the radiator in a car. Water or another fluid circulates through a plate to pick up heat and move it away. This method is amazing for handling lots of heat in a small area and gives you precise control over the temperature. It’s a trusted solution in our industry, so we recommended it.
A Sudden Twist: The Outdoor Problem
Then, the project took an interesting turn. We learned the customer’s equipment was designed for outdoor use. This changed everything. An outdoor setting creates new problems for liquid cooling systems.
What if the liquid freezes in the winter? What if a hose springs a leak? Fixing those issues on-site could be a nightmare and very expensive.
“Outdoor environments are the ultimate test for any cooling system,” explains our Senior Thermal Engineer. “You have to plan for everything from freezing rain to blistering summer heat. Reliability becomes your top priority, because you can’t have systems failing in the field.”
After thinking about the installation, ease of use, and long-term costs, we knew we had to find a better way. We decided to switch our plan to an air-cooling system.
A New Plan: Can Air Cooling Handle 16,000 Watts of Heat?
Luckily, the customer told us their equipment already had a powerful fan system. This fan could supply a large volume of air, which gave us a great starting point for our new air-cooling design.
But the challenge was still huge. The system had four 4kW IGBT modules, creating a mind-boggling 16kW of total heat. Cooling that much heat with only air is incredibly difficult. We needed a special design to make it work.
Our Smart Solution: A Custom Heat Pipe Heat Sink
Our company put together a special team of experienced thermal engineers and technicians. This team got to work, running detailed calculations and analyzing different designs.
They decided on a solution that uses heat pipe technology. What are heat pipes? They are like super-highways for heat. These special copper tubes can pull heat away from a hot spot very quickly and spread it across a larger area to be cooled.
Using this technology, our team designed a one-of-a-kind heat sink with these features:
- Skived Fin Design: The fins were sliced from a single block of copper, creating a dense structure to maximize the surface area for heat to escape.
- Optimized Structure: The final heat sink measured 400mm wide, 220mm long, and 115mm tall. Every part of its design, from the fin layout to the air channels, was built to improve airflow and heat transfer.
- Embedded Heat Pipes: We integrated heat pipes directly into the base of the heat sink to instantly pull heat from the IGBT modules.
Did It Work? The Test Results
Before building anything, we used advanced computer software to simulate the performance of our heat sink design. The simulation showed us exactly how hot the IGBT module would get under full power.
The results were fantastic! Our design kept the module’s temperature at a stable 107°C. This was well below the customer’s safety requirement of 120°C. The simulation proved our heat pipe heat sink design was both effective and reliable.
From Design to Reality: A Happy Customer
When we showed the customer our design proposal and the detailed test reports, they were extremely impressed with our team’s skill and creative solution.
To help them move forward quickly, we immediately started making a sample. We carefully managed every step of the process to ensure the highest quality, from buying the raw materials to the final inspection. This guaranteed the sample was perfect for their final testing and validation.
