Thermal Analysis of LED Arrays for Automotive Headlamp With a Novel Cooling System

In this paper, we report the thermal performance of a light-emitting diode (LED) headlamp module with a novel cooling system. An air-circulating cooling system was design for the LED headlamp module. The precise fluid field modeling and heat transfer analysis using computational fluid dynamics were performed according to the practical working conditions for the headlamp. The junction temperatures of LEDs were found to decrease by using the air-cooling system and, thus, improved the heat dissipating capability of the LED array. The junction temperature of the LED array was decreased from 70.6degC to 30.25degC when the circulating speed of the air increased from 0 to 120 km/h. Also, the temperature decrease of 2degC ~ 4degC was obtained by using fins. By thermal analysis, the cooling system of LED arrays for the headlamps was found to be feasible. Also, the reliability of the headlamp with LED arrays can be improved with a good cooling system.