Thermal Management of Electronic Devices

An overheated mobile phone due to its increased temperature is prone to explosion that will damage it. Therefore, mobile phone manufacturers all over the world use a Heat Pipe technology to keep mobile phones cool as to secure and maintain the mobile phone’s safety and security. In fact, there are many other uses of heat pipe technology to be applied in other electronic devices.

Heat Pipe

Heat Pipe is a heat transfer technology using a certain size pipe containing liquid as working fluid to conduct heat from the hot end (evaporator) to the other end as a cooler (condenser). The pipe is usually made of aluminum, copper or nickel-plated copper. Heat pipe serves as an application that can be applied in a cooling system.

Electronic cooling

Heat pipe is used to cool an electronic component. It can also be used in an air conditioner, refrigerator, laptop or notebook to reduce the component’s working temperature. In an air conditioner, the heat pipe strengthens its cooling coil performance, so it can save more energy. Serving to be able to release heat, heat pipe is also used by smartphone manufacturers manufacturing game consoles and computer devices emitting a large number of heat fluxes such as VGA, mainboard chipsets and memory chipsets. Heat Pipe is employed to cool down the battery of an electric car currently rife, making it safe from any fire hazards.

How it Works

Heat Pipe consists of three parts namely the evaporator on one end, where heat is absorbed and liquid is evaporated; the condenser on the other end, where steam is condensed and heat is released; and the adiabatic part located in between. Adiabatic is a condition where there is no heat transfer from or to the surrounding environment. The working fluid in the heat pipe changes in phases and flows naturally through the capillary axis of the heat pipe.

Advantages

Empirically, heat pipe is much more capable of conducting heat than is aluminum, copper or even silver. Moreover, it is able to drain more heat without any additional energy or with passive cooling. Heat transfer from this type of heat pipe is very popular because it is well-performed in terms of energy conservation. Moreover, it is environmentally friendly since the heat pipe can be used to recover wasted heat from exhaust gas and can be applied to cool industrial and household machinery.

Quote:

“Heat pipes can be employed to save energy of and cool various products like air conditioners and batteries, so, the desired temperature can be achieved and right on target. Indonesia has a great opportunity to improve them since they are still rarely developed.”