Thermal analysis and experimental validation on cooling efficiency of thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels

This research explored the thermal analysis and modeling of a 32” thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panel, in the purpose of making possible improvements in cooling efficiencies. The illumination of the panel was insured by 180 light emitting diodes (LEDs) located at the top and bottom edges of the panels. These LEDs dissipate high heat flux at low thermal resistance. Hence, in order to insure good image quality in panels and long service life, an adequate thermal management is necessary. For this purpose, a commercially available computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation software “FloEFD” was used to predict the temperature distribution. This thermal prediction by computational method was validated by an experimental thermal analysis by attaching 10 thermocouples on the back cover of the panel and measuring the temperatures. Also, thermal camera images of the panel by FLIR Thermacam SC 2000 test device were also analyzed.