TRANSIENT THERMAL ANALYSIS

OF A LAPTOP STAND
ME 4429 Thermofluid Applications and Design

Submitted by:
Matthew Lepine

Submitted to:
Prof. Seluk Geri
Milad Farzad

March 3, 2017
Introduction
I designed a laptop stand to hold a standard-sized 15-inch
laptop. The laptop I intend to use on this stand is powerful and gets
very hot, especially when I use SolidWorks. I wanted to make sure
that the heat generated could be dissipated quickly, by adding fins to
the bottom of the stand, so the computer could run at a high level for
an extended period of time. In this design experiment, I would like to
determine which of two designs is superior in cooling down the
laptop.

Object Description & Simulation Setup

The laptop stand is 325 mm in width, 230 mm in height, and 5
mm in thickness, not including the fins. The fins on the bottom are 5
mm wide, with a 5-degree draft for the baseline design and a 3-degree
draft for the parametric design. The laptop stand also has 4 legs for
support that are 100 mm long, with a diameter of 15 mm at the base,
which tapers down to a diameter of 10 mm at the end of the legs;
these are spaced 20 mm from the edges of the stand, at the corners.
For the baseline design, the fins are 20 mm tall, with the 21
center fins 130 mm long and the 6 top & bottom fins 230 mm long.
For the parametric design, the fins are 30 mm tall, with the 11 center
fins 130 mm long and the 4 top & bottom fins 230 mm long.
The laptop stand is made of Aluminum 3003 alloy, which has a
thermal conductivity of 170 W/m-K. The initial temperature of the
laptop stand was set to be 20C (room temperature).
There is also a model for the laptop, which is 320 mm in width,
225 mm in height, and 20 mm in thickness. The laptop is made of
Aluminum 1060 alloy, which has a thermal conductivity of 200 W/m-K.
The initial temperature of the laptop was set to be 35C.

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 The simulation was set to be a transient temperature
distribution over the course of 60 seconds.

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Baseline Simulation
The first simulation used the baseline design described in the
Object Description & Simulation Setup section above. Below are
images of the stand in 10-second increments over the course of a
minute.

Figures 1 & 2: Baseline Simulation at 10 seconds

Max. Temperature: 30.31C, Min. Temperature: 20.34C

Figures 3 & 4: Baseline Simulation at 20 seconds

Max. Temperature: 29.40C, Min. Temperature: 21.05C

Figures 5 & 6: Baseline Simulation at 30 seconds

Max. Temperature: 29.22C, Min. Temperature: 21.95C

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 Figures 7 & 8: Baseline Simulation at 40 seconds
Max. Temperature: 29.18C, Min. Temperature: 22.89C

Figures 9 & 10: Baseline Simulation at 50 seconds

Max. Temperature: 29.14C, Min. Temperature: 23.77C

Figures 11 & 12: Baseline Simulation at 60 seconds

Max. Temperature: 29.12C, Min. Temperature: 24.54C

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Parametric Simulation
The second simulation used the parametric design described in
the Object Description & Simulation Setup section. This design used
fewer fins, but the fins used were longer than the fins in the baseline
simulation. Below are images of the stand in 10-second increments
over the course of a minute.

Figures 13 & 14: Parametric Simulation at 10 seconds

Max. Temperature: 30.43C, Min. Temperature: 20.34C

Figures 15 & 16: Parametric Simulation at 20 seconds

Max. Temperature: 29.56C, Min. Temperature: 21.05C

Figures 17 & 18: Parametric Simulation at 30 seconds

Max. Temperature: 29.37C, Min. Temperature: 21.97C

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 Figures 19 & 20: Parametric Simulation at 40 seconds
Max. Temperature: 29.31C, Min. Temperature: 22.92C

Figures 21 & 22: Parametric Simulation at 50 seconds

Max. Temperature: 29.27C, Min. Temperature: 23.81C

Figures 23 & 24: Parametric Simulation at 60 seconds

Max. Temperature: 29.26C, Min. Temperature: 24.59C

Conclusion
Based on the temperature plots of the simulations, the baseline
design outperformed the parametric design. The final maximum
temperature for the baseline design was 29.12C, while the final
maximum temperature for the parametric design was 29.26C. This
makes sense, since the baseline design had more surface area
through which to distribute the heat. In hindsight, it would have been

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better to use a more conductive aluminum alloy for the stand, so the
heat could be dissipated even more effectively.