Wessel Willems Wits

Thermal Management through In-Board Heat Pipes Manufactured using Printed Circuit Board Multilayer Technology

A novel, integrated approach in thermal management of electronic products, based on two-phase cooling, is presented. A flat miniature heat pipe, integrated inside the laminated structure of a printed circuit board (PCB) has been developed, based on mainstream PCB fabrication processes. Hot spots on the PCB, caused by heat dissipating components, can be cooled with relatively small temperature gradients across the board. Experimental verification has shown successful heat pipe operation. The results show an equivalent thermal conductivity 11 times better compared to solid copper. The low thermal resistance values establish this concept as a promising thermal management solution for future electronic products.

Reducing design complexity of multidisciplinary domain integrated products: a case study

Multidisciplinary product development is well known for the complexity of its design process. It is commonly addressed by domain integration and a modular design approach. The former, often resulting in smaller products and integrated functions, is characterized by a complex non-linear design process. The latter, which may not result in such integrated functions, has a simpler —usually linear— design process, resulting in novel solutions. This paper presents a method for reducing design complexity of Multidisciplinary Domain Integrated Products by decomposing the problem into modular structures. Computational synthesis techniques are used to solve the resulting modules. Printed Circuit Board design is used as case study, as it is well known for its complexity and highly integrated product functionalities.

A Template for Design for eXcellence (DfX) Methods

Design for eXcellence (DfX) entails a wide range of goal specific design methods targeting different phases of a product’s lifecycle. These methods are often not standardized and sometimes even have contradicting rules among them. As a consequence, design processes experience an increase in organizational entropy. This paper presents a template for DfX methods. The goal is to assist the industry in setting up lean design processes. The results of this research are threefold: (1) standardization of DfX design tasks and information flows, (2) facilitating the implementation of DfX methods and (3) enable benchmarking of DfX methods to purify design processes