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EPAC
Home of COLDPLATE Software - The Most Comprehensive Cold Plate Analysis and Design Software on the Planet!

Introduction

Cold plate thermal analysis software from EPAC offers user friendly design and analysis of cold plates and heat sinks. A cold plate is a heat sink with a cover on it to force air or a liquid between the fins and enhance the heat transfer. Simply put, lift the cover off the cold plate and you have a heat sink.

COLDPLATE offers rapid analysis, design, and presentation of trade studies involving different fin parameters, geometry, fluid flow rates and boundary conditions for cold plates and heat sinks. With COLDPLATE, both isothermal and non-isothermal analysis can be performed within minutes, try that with CFD.

Fin height, fin density (number of fins per inch), fin thickness and base plate thickness, pin fin diameter and pin fin spacing all may have variable values within the same model allowing easy parametric analyses to be performed.

Numerous types of longitudinal fins may be modeled from a built in database. In addition, fin types defined by the user can be added to the fin type library.

In addition to modeling air as the cooling/heating fluid there is an extensive library of fluids available for modeling. The user may also add their own fluids to the library. In addition, COLDPLATE allows the user to specify more than one fluid type within the same model.

Both in-line and staggered pins may also be modeled.

The flowrate of fluid through the cold plate can be defined by a number of methods. They include defining the mass flow rate, the volume flow rate, the desired cold plate temperature, the desired exit fluid temperatur, the disired pressure drop across the cold plate or ram air velocity . Each of these option may also be independently defined and a number of them may have variable input values.

Any number of different fin types may be specified within the same mode allowing parametric analyses to evaluated.

Fin Types

Fluid Types

Variable Geometry

Variable Environments

Ram Air Flow

COLDPLATE Ram air cooling describes a process/analysis whereby air is ingested into a scoop or opening that leads to a cold plate. The scoop/opening and cold plate are usually a part of an moving vehicle (aircraft, missile, pod or automobile). The pressure build up in front of the scoop or opening is what causes air flow into the cooling system.

Bypass Flow

Air that flows over and through a heatsink but is not contrained to have all the air go between the fins may easily be accounted for by defining the space around the heatsink.

Material Properties

The cold plate/heatsink base plate, fins, cover and optional insulation do not have to be made of the same material. The thermal conductivity, density and specific heat each part may be independently defined. In addition, there is library of materials of these properties which may be edited by the user.

Any type of conditions such as land, sea or air may be modeled. Fluid flow inlet temperature, pressure or altitude conditions can input as a single value or as an array of values to simulate aircraft flight conditions or ground conditions at different locations.

Flowrate Options

Serpentine Flow Path

Not only can you model a finned cold plate with a straight through flow path, but a multi-turn flow path cold plate can also be modeled and analyzed. All it takes is inputting a single value of the number of truns the flow path makes.

External Convection and Radiation

Heat transferin the form of convection or radiation external to the cold plate may be accounted for by specifying the ambient air or wall temperature.

Pressure Drop Parameters

Full accounting of turn losses, area change lossess, friction losses or other type of pressure drop losses both before and after the cold plate are calculated by COLDPLATE and added to the internal pressure drops within the cold plate.

Power Application

Power may be applied to the base of the cold plate or to both the base and cover.

Numerous plots of results can be easily generated and displayed. Parametrice trade studies of fin height, fin density, fin thickness, flluid flow rate, temperature versus time, etc are just some of the type of plots available.

Plots of Results

Insulation from Ambient

To protect the cold plate from heat infiltration (heat transfer) from a hot ambient, an isulation layer mounted on the cover may be modeled by specifying its thickness, thermal conductivity, density and specific heat. Additionally, the thickness can be a variable parameter to allow quick assessment of its benefit.

Wizards

Four different modeling wizards are available to speed up building of models. One wizard generates a simple model within minutes for the new user. Two of the other wizards generate models to generate plots of numerous parametric trade studies and the last one walks the user through building non-isothermal models.

Units Selection

Both SI and English units are available.

Fan Balancing

The cold plate can automatically be divided into nodes (finite difference method) to predict the temperatures across the cold plate. All that is needed is specification of the number of nodes along the width and length.

Non-isothermal Analysis

Fan performance curves may be input and its operating point(s) may be determined using the flow rate variable input capability.

Steady-state temperature prediction with or without fluid flow can be performed. For each variable parameter input, a seperate analysis is performed. For example, if 5 different fin height are input, then 5 different predictions are made.

Steady-State

Transient analysis is also a solution feature of COLDPLATE. Modeling can consist of a steady-state analysis then followed with a transient analysis including fluid flow or no fluid flow conditions.

Transient Analysis

Color contour plots of the cold plate and fluid can be easily generated giving the user insight and understanding of their design.

Contour Plot

Environment versus Time

The inlet fluid temperature or fluid flow rate may be a constant value or may be a time varying value.

Power or Conductances vs Time or Temperature

The power at each node or conductances between nodes may a constant value or may be a time or temperature varying value.

Thermostat Modeling

A temperature controlled heater or cooler can be modeled as part of the non-isothermal cold plate analysis. The heater/cooler is controlled by inputting the sensed node number, the on and off temperature, the the initial switch position and a list of nodes and their corresponding power.

Results Files

There are a number of results files generated with each analysis. The files specialize in the type of results presented: intermediate results, summary of parametric studies, detailed pressure drop results, Excel readable file of results, etc.

Flow may be modeled through a circular or rectangular tube that follows a serpentine path. The tube or channel connections to the base plate is automatically assigned via node row numbers.

Tube/Channel Cold Plate