Coupled Conduction-Convection Problem for a Substrate-Mounted Three Chips in a Three Dimensional Enclosure

The coupled heat conduction/convection problem for three heated chips mounted on a conductive substrate in a three dimensional enclosure filled with air is solved by an operator-splitting pseudo-time-stepping finite element method, which automatically satisfies the continuity of the interfacial temperature and heat flux. The main feature of the solution procedure is that the multiphases are treated as a single computational domain with unknown interfacial boundary conditions. The temperature distribution in the chips, in the substrate and in the surrounding air, together with the convective flow pattern are obtained simultaneously. From the variations of thermal conductance, which is strongly dependent on the chips' arrangement, it is concluded that the heat transfer is enhanced if the bottom chip generates more heat.