The effect of a table on the thermal performance of an electronic system

This paper describes a computational and analytical study to investigate the effect of the table boundary conditions on the thermal performance of a generic electronics box. The box, a simplified model of a typical laptop computer configuration, has been used to examine the effect of varying table conductivity, air gap thickness, and radiative heat transfer over the limits that would be likely to be found in practical situations. It is shown that, far from being an adiabatic boundary condition, typical tables are much closer to being isothermal heat sinks than one might imagine. It is also shown that, within a practical range, the thickness of the air gap has relatively little effect on the temperature of components within the box. Finally, advice is offered to designers faced with analysis of products in this configuration