Computational analysis of heat flow in computer casing

Abstract

Reliability of a computer system is directly related to thermal management system. This is due to the fact that poor thermal management led to high temperature distribution throughout hardware components and resulting poor performance and reducing fatigue life of the package. Therefore, good cooling solutions (heat sink, fan) and proper form factor design (expandability, interchangeable of parts) is necessary to provide good thermal management in computer system. The performance of Advanced Technology Extended (ATX) and its purposed successor, Balanced Technology Extended (BTX) were compared to investigate the aforementioned factors. Simulations were conducted by using ANSYS software. Results obtained from simulations were compared with values in the datasheet obtained from manufacturers for validation purposes and it was discovered that there are more chaos region in the flow profile for ATX form factor. In contrast, BTX form factor yields a straighter flow profile. Based on the result, we can conclude that BTX form factor has better cooling capability compared to its predecessor, ATX due to the improvement of layout made in the BTX form factor. With this change, it enabled BTX form factor to be used with more advanced components which dissipate more amount of heat and also improves the acoustic performance of BTX by reducing the number of fan needed to just one unit for BTX.