Numerical study on some improvements in the passive cooling system of a radio base station

Passive cooling schemes, such as natural convection, are the most safe heat dissipation mode of electronic equipment. Some times the highest temperature of the PCB, rather than the highest of chips, is very much a concern due to technological reasons. In order to reduce the maximum PCB temperature, this article discusses various improvement methods via numerical simulation. These include optimization of fin number of heat sink, structure improvement of sun shield, and creation of insulation cavity in the base plate of heat sink. Taking the PCB of an RBS as an example, numerical simulation results show that by integrating these methods the maximum PCB temperature can be appreciably reduced. This article provides an example that by using a careful numerical thermal design, a passive cooling mode can sometimes meet the cooling requirement of a PCB with high power input in some extent.