Geometry optimization of thermal interface material with the help of heat propagation speed subjected to a pulsed heat source

Abstract The article describes a new method of defining the heat transfer mechanism occurring inside thermal interface materials by analysing time marching contours developed from an in-house numerical code written in SCILAB software. A high frequency IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) with a pulsed heat dissipation source is attached to one side of the TIM (Thermal Interface Material) and its transient heat propagation along the radius and thickness has been studied to observe the behaviour of thermal resistance to set up heat flow process inside the domain. To obtain better understanding of heat propagation within the small thickness provided, a heat propagation speed has been calculated and plotted across the computational domain. To optimize the geometry, heat propagation speeds are captured further for various radial and axial thickness of the TIM to locate appropriate areas where thermal resistance becomes least for the applied heat pulse.