NUMERICAL THERMAL COMPARISON OF HEAT SINK MATERIALS FOR AUTOMOTIVE LED HEADLAMPS

Abstract eng:
Currently, aluminium is the most widely used heat sink material for cooling LEDs in automotive headlamps because of its good thermophysical properties. But the headlamps manufacturers are still looking for other material solutions, which could be better than the aluminium one. One of the possibilities is using plastics with high thermal conductivity, because even if its conductivity is lower than aluminium’s, it is much easier to shape to various forms, which could be better for heat transportation and the cost of this solution could be much lower. This paper deals with the comparison of a real heat sink geometry, used in the front headlamp of automobile, where it serves to cool LEDs. A numerical comparison between three materials was made: firstly the actually used aluminium alloy, secondly a imaginative material with isotropic thermal conductivity 20 W∙m-1∙K-1 serving as a comparision between plastic material and thirdly a plastic material with anisotropic thermal conductivity which ranges from 5 to 20 W∙m-1∙K-1.

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