Active Cooling and Thermal Simulation Applied to an Extra-High Current COB LED

Abstract

This work lies on the active cooling and thermal evaluation applied to an extra-high current (up to 12 A) chip-on-board (COB) light-emitting diode (LED). Simulations are performed employing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) so that the main thermal parameters can be obtained as close as possible to real results. Aiming at a thorough analysis of heat dissipation at very high current levels in floodlighting applications, a finite element analysis is carried out in order to establish a comparative approach concerning the convected air flow through a volume-reduced fin-heatsink. The simulated results show that the lighting system can be significantly improved by employing such active cooling technique for the device’s power rated condition (i.e., 350 W). For this operating point, the manufacturer’s heatsink physical volume could be decreased by 87% when applying the active cooling system with convected air flux, while also ensuring a safe thermal operation under maximum junction temperature of 120 °C.