|
A leading global provider of patient temperature management
products uses TEC to deliver low temperature air to its surgical
cooling blanket used during brain surgery. The blanket, through
which chilled air is circulated at temperatures down to 10C,
is wrapped around the patient to lower body temperature and increase
the chances of surgical success.
The initial cooling design performed well thermally, but proved
too noisy for the operating room. Two 100 CFM fans mounted on
external heat sinks generated 55 db and doctors were complaining.
The company sought to reduce the level to less than 45 db, and
engineers experimented with reducing fan speed and size. That
approach didn't work; noise level went down, but so did thermal
performance. After months of experimentation with various designs
and hardware, the engineers got frustrated about not finding an
answer.
To solve the problem, the company enlisted CE Technologies (CET).
Using Coolit, CET determined that airflow around the
heat sink was poor due to fan location and inadequate heat sink.
Lower flow and hence quieter fans simply would not work with the
existing heat sink. A larger heat sink was required and there was
not enough room to mount it.
CET investigated various heat sink options and within hours
identified the changes that produced desired results. Replacing the
plate fin sink with a pin fin sink optimized for pin size, shape,
and spacing provided the necessary cooling improvement without
increasing the heat sink size. Coolit also optimized the
distance between the fans and heat sink to improve the airflow.
Within three days CET developed a number of design options for
fan flow rate, fan position and heat sink design, allowing the
manufacturer to chose the combination best suited to its
manufacturing. The selected option used two 70 CFM fans,
significantly reducing noise level.
Originally, the company had budgeted an additional 3 months and 4
times the cost to complete the project. When the final Coolit
design was tested, the analysis proved accurate to within 5%.
|
