Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

  • Congratulations cowski on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Temperature rise in an alum enclosure 3

Status
Not open for further replies.

SolSurfer1

Mechanical
Nov 16, 2010
8
Hello all,
I searched through the forums ("temperature rise") and did not find an applicable thread (or at least one that I thought would help) for my question. My apologies, if I missed a previous thread that addresses my question.
My question is: What is the formula for estimating the rise in temperature within an enclosure, having no internal airflow and mounted outdoors?
The enclosure is constructed of aluminum; having dimensions of 0.7mX0.5mX0.4m and a wall thickness of 0.005m
The power dissipation inside the enclosure is 50w
The ambient (outside) temperature is 40°C
Thank you,
SolSurfer
 
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

For steady state: q=(1/R)deltaT

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”
 
Sorry, but I'm confused.
I would have expected something that factors T2 (outside), the area and thickness of the surfaces, the coefficient of conductivity of those surfaces and the power dissipated inside; resulting in the DeltaT .
Can you please explain?
Thx.
 
The same basic relationship applies to each heat transfer interface, i.e., board to internal air, internal air to enclosure, enclosure to external air. The simultaneous solution to the three equations results in the enclosure surface temperature, the internal air temperature, and the temperature of the boards.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize
 
Seems to me that you need to consult an HT textbook.
This one is free to download:
But there are plenty of HT resources on the web. The one that hosts Electronics Cooling Magazine has a library of older articles which include the subject you're interested in.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize
 
IRStuff, thank you for the links, I'll go through them.
Unfortunately, this is not my area of expertise, and I was hoping that that there was a straightforward first-order estimate equation that one might use to acquire a ROM estimate for the temperature rise in an enclosure(knowing the size of the enclosure, the material of the enclosure, that the fluid within the enclosure was air, the power dissipated in the enclosure and the ambient temperature outside the enclosure). At least to the point that I could begin to understand if it was 2 degrees or 20 degrees.
Again, thank you for your time and links.
Regards.
 
This is like a single glazed house window where the glass is aluminum.
The aluminum will have an effective "R" value of zero -ie. no thermal resistance.
All the thermal resistance will come from the air films. There is one on the inside of the box probably about 0.68 in Imperial units (btu/hr/ft2/degF). The thermal resistance on the outside of the box will ~ the same unless there is a fan to provide air movement.

Unknowns 1. There will be "natural convection" of air inside the box - but imo won't change things much.

2. The viscosity of the air inside the box will change with the heating - but imo this won't affect much either -unless things are really hot.

3. You are unlikely to get a film coefficient accuracy better than +-20% so consider this.

4. There will be another film coefficient to consider - the one around your heat source in the box - but if you are only interested in the air temperature of the box provides no information of utility.

Good textbooks can provide a more "accurate" answer for these "heat source in an enclosure problems" but with the +-20 % in the "R" value - is it worth the effort for a standard analysis where nothing is "strange".

Then its Btu/hr = area x deltaT/(Total R)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor