Determination of Operational Limit for a Conduction Cooled 6U Versa Module Eurocard

It is necessary that the heat generated whilst a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) is in operation must be dissipated away. Else it will trigger thermal throttling, which in turn slow down the processing speed or at its extreme, failure of circuit components. The conventional method involves convective cooling, which is established by means of convective heat transfer by the installation of fans or running coolants through channels. In the present work, conductive cooling is achieved by placing metallic blocks and keeping them in direct thermal contact with the heat source. In cases of convection cooling, flow rate, turbulence, and fluid properties can be varied to improve heat dissipation, whereas, for conduction cooling, no such control and modifications can be done. Thus, the maximum amount of heat that can be produced by the components assembly as a whole must be limited to a particular value. In the present study, we evaluate the operating limit of the conduction cooling system. In addition to that, the tests also evaluate and compare the thermal resistance of different material-based modules. The study is conducted for a 6U VME (Versa Module Euro-card) designed as per IEEE 1101.2 standards. This standard defines the dimensions of associated plug-in units for conduction cooling applications and connector-mounting details together with applicable detail dimensions of key sub-rack interfaces.