Pick of the Week: Check it Out: Blue Ridge Numerics Video

By Anthony J. Lockwood

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

The trend toward green everything has raised any number of engineering problems. LEDs, for example, are emerging as a popular lighting alternative because of their high efficiency and flexible color output options. A big problem with LEDs is heat management, and that is where a lot of development action is going on.

LEDs offer more difficult thermal challenges than incandescent, linear fluorescent, compact fluorescent, Halogen, or High Intensity Discharge lamps. And these challenges are new to the industry. In simplified terms: LEDs operate best and last longer at cooler temperatures than other lamp types, yet some 75-85% of the energy run through an LED converts into heat. You have to conduct this heat through a PCB and heat sink before convection to surrounding air. The better you do it, the better your LED performs. Simple enough to say, but the trick is in doing it.

Engineers have been using CFdesign from Blue Ridge Numerics for thermal management and to optimize natural convection heat sinks, in-take designs, baffle placement, die and slug bonding, fan selection, and so on for nearly 20 years. CFdesign’s big trick is that it lets you study and optimize your thermal issues from the earliest stage of your design process, saving you countless hours of backtracking, rework, and wandering around in dead ends.

The people at Blue Ridge have produced a new, three-minute video that shows you how CFdesign can compress and advance your LED design cycles. Entitled “Methods for Managing Thermal Challenges for LED Applications,” this video also demonstrates how easy yet powerful CFdesign is to use.

While watching the video, I noticed that the narrator also mentioned some of the big-name clients that standardized their lighting design processes around CFdesign. You’ll find a couple of links below today’s Check It Out video to some very brief case studies on how companies use CFdesign to analyze their LED products. Read them. They’re short and sweet.

Blue Ridge Numerics says it is the fastest growing CFD company in the world. I haven’t checked out that claim, but I have little reason to quibble with it. But I know one thing from talking about CFdesign with users: They love it. So, take 10 minutes and watch, read, and learn what CFdesign will do for you. Top-shelf stuff here.

Thanks, Pal.—Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at large, Desktop Engineering

Check Out the CFdesign video