Using the PCBCAT to Model
Convective Heat Transfer from
Electronic Devices on Printed Circuit Boards

Gerald W. Recktenwald
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Portland State University
Portland, Oregon
gerry@me.pdx.edu

The Printed Circuit Board Convection Analysis Tools (PCBCAT) are
computer programs for predicting the thermal performance of
convectively cooled printed circuit boards.  The flow field is
obtained by solving the depth-averaged (DA) momentum and continuity
equations for the fluid layer above the electronic components. The
two-dimensional DA velocity field data is then incorporated into a
solution for the three-dimensional temperature field in the fluid
and electronic components. By solving the conjugate heat transfer
problem the need to specify a heat transfer coefficient is
eliminated.  By solving the DA flow equations instead of the
three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations the computing time is
reduced substantially. The physical problem to be analyzed is
specified via commands in a plain text file which is parsed by the
PCBCAT preprocessor. The commands allow the user to describe
features of the calculation domain in a succinct, physically
intuitive way. This paper provides an overview of the PCBCAT
package from the user's perspective.  The modeling capabilities of
the PCBCAT are demonstrated with two example problems.

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presented at the 1995 International Mechanical Engineering
Congress and Exposition in San Francisco, November 1995