Thermal analysis of Advantech's industrial computer

According to statistics, dust, heat dissipation, and static electricity are the three main factors that cause computer instability. However, due to the different use environments of commercial PCs, they only comply with the AT, ATX, and even the latest BTX architectures in terms of heat dissipation, and dust and static electricity problems are not prominent in ordinary use environments, so commercial PCs rarely consider this.

However, the use environment of industrial computers is relatively special, and they often operate in high temperature, dust, and poor power supply conditions, and most of them operate in a 7X24-hour environment. Due to the different architectures, the chassis design concept of commercial PCs cannot be directly copied to industrial computers. Therefore, in terms of heat dissipation and dustproof, the industrial computer must have its own design concept, and the quality of heat dissipation directly affects the stability of the industrial computer.

In the early days, the CPU was not prominent due to the power consumption problem, so the heat dissipation of the industrial computer was not a major consideration in the design. But as people's demand for CPU performance increases, so does the power consumption of processors. The maximum power consumption of the latest Intel LGA775 architecture P4 processor is actually more than 100W. The heat dissipation problem inside the industrial computer has also become increasingly serious. In response to this problem, Advantech has continuously made improvements to its own products.

Let's take Advantech's most classic 4U rackmount chassis 610 series for a specific analysis:

Thermal analysis of Advantech's industrial computer

The first generation of the IPC-610 series, version F chassis

This is the high-end product IPC-610BP-F in the first generation of IPC610 series cases, because the CPU power consumption problem is not prominent when this case is designed, so it only uses a single-fan assisted cooling design. And we can see that in order to consider the complex diversity of the industrial computer application environment, there is a filter design in front of the fan. Because in some harsh environments, the filter and fan must be cleaned frequently to ensure normal operation, so the fan and filter on this case are designed to be easy to replace, and the design concept of easy maintenance has been reflected in the design of the industrial computer case. Especially in high-end industrial computer products, the easy maintenance of the system is one of the design concepts of industrial computers in the high-end market.

When the P4 processor enters the industrial computer market, its high heat generation makes various industrial control manufacturers have to pay attention to the heat dissipation problem of the industrial computer. Advantech's introduction of the second-generation IPC, the 610 series of industrial computers, has strengthened the consideration of heat dissipation. For example, the hot-selling IPC for the mid-to-high-end market - 610H, in order to improve the heat dissipation effect, increase the internal air flow of the case, and adopt a dual-fan design. Based on maintenance considerations, the dual fans are fixed on a single extraction plate with a modular design concept, so that they can be easily replaced. Since the area of the filter is increased after the use of dual fans, the original side-extracting filter replacement method is not applicable, so the engineers adopted the method of opening the filter in front of the filter to facilitate the extraction of the filter.

Even in the low-end market, the IPC - 610L, has a unique design concept in the design of cooling fans and filters. With a single-fan design with a front opening, the fan can be opened in front and the filter is easy to extract.

After looking at the 4U large body heat dissipation design, let's consider the internal heat dissipation design of the 1U and 2U chassis. Due to the size limitation of the chassis, this type of machine adopts the design of butterfly back plate and provides a modular design for easy user maintenance, but because the CFM of small fans is relatively small, it can only use more fans to increase the air flow. Let's take a look at the 1U chassis thermal design: