A simplified finite element model for uncoupled thermal analysis in CPV heat sink

design to reduce time-to-market

Alberto J. Garca, Antonio J. rpez, and Fernando Cruz-Peragn
Citation: AIP Conference Proceedings 1556, 274 (2013); doi: 10.1063/1.4822248
View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4822248
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/proceeding/aipcp/1556?ver=pdfcov
Published by the AIP Publishing
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A Simplified Finite Element Model For Uncoupled Thermal

Analysis In CPV Heat Sink Design To Reduce
Time-To-Market
Alberto J. Garca1, Antonio J. rpez1 and Fernando Cruz-Peragn2
1

Teknia R&D, C/ Serrano, 28, 28001 Madrid, Spain;

alberto.garcia@tekniagroup.com; antonioj.orpez@tekniagroup.com
2
Universidad de Jan, Campus Las Lagunillas, Jan, Spain; fcruz@ujaen.es
Abstract: A novel FEM thermal model for photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) technologies is
presented in order to improve fluid-mechanic studies for heat-sink design and thermal behavior of components in solar
industry, reducing lead time from design to results. This is achieved by implementing the finite element software
ABAQUS through a user defined subroutine and taking into account all the environmental requirements, and through the
all known fluid-dynamics magnitude relations, as semi empirical equations. This new approach is completely novel and
means that it is not necessary to make a complex CFD at early stages of design, but a simplified uncoupled non-linear
thermal FEM simulation, reducing a great amount of time and costs, as it is only necessary few time to change design
and to reanalyze. The results have been compared with a thermal imaging camera in real operating conditions.
Keywords: Simplified design and analysis for thermal components, heat-sink design, Finite Element Method,
Subroutine.
PACS: 44.05.+e, 88.05.De, 88.40.fc

INTRODUCTION
Thermal behavior in a CPV module is a very
important issue and is directly related to the yield of
the energy obtained in a CPV system. It is well known
that the performance of electronics is better and more
efficient at lower temperature operation of devices [1,
2], so it is important to correctly balance the operating
temperature and the cost of this passive heat sinking,
since the competitiveness of a CPV system is critical.
Therefore, heat sink optimization can be one of the
keys in the development of a CPV system.
CFD (Computational fluid dynamics) software is a
well-known tool for studying the performance of heat
sinks and other devices regarding their thermodynamic
behavior under given conditions [3], especially for
heat transfer in processes of conduction, convection
and radiation.
The design procedure for heat sinks can be a little
tedious and much time and effort must be invested in
order to achieve a suitable and cost-effective product.
This paper presents a user subroutine that allows initial
analysis of heat sinks at early design stages avoiding
complex CFD analysis. The proposed model
establishes mixed boundary conditions (steady state
conditions) for heat transfer from nodes plates to the
surrounding air by using a local film coefficient for
free air convection. The user-subroutine obtains better

results than constant convection coefficients without

any added pre/post processing difficulty.

METHODOLOGY
An analytical methodology has been developed for
the purpose of this study. FD (Fluid Dynamics) cases
take into account magnitudes like ambient temperature
(C), wind speed (ms-1), angle of the module versus the
horizontal plane (), irradiation coming from the sun
(Wm-2), optical performance of the module (%), the
conductivity of each of the materials used in the
thermal stack (Wm-1K-1), and of course the geometry
used in this thermal stack and the integrated or nonintegrated heat sink and module-housing environment
[4,5].
Heat transfer can be provided by conduction (more
high-energy molecules transfer a part of the energy to
nearby molecules), convection and radiation. Thermal
conduction, i.e. the heat flux through a cross section A,
is described by Fouriers law
x

k

wT
wn

kT ,

(1)

with the heat flux Q , the heat conductivity k and

is the three-dimensional operand. The convectional
heat transition between wall and medium depends on

9th International Conference on Concentrator Photovoltaic Systems

AIP Conf. Proc. 1556, 274-278 (2013); doi: 10.1063/1.4822248
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the flow of the media (type of fluid as well as the flow,

flow speed and condition of the wall), described by
x

h A (TFL  TW ) .

(2)

h is the heat-transfer coefficient wall-ambient

(that incorporates the convection and radiation heat
transfer mechanisms, that is, h = hC + hR [6]), TFL the
temperature of the fluid and TW the surface
temperature of the solid field. All analysis was realized
in steady state conditions, similar to real heat sink
operating conditions.
In general, a steady state heat conduction problem
consists of finding temperature at any point within a
specified solid whose surface has been subjected to a
known set of boundary conditions. The internal energy
term (the specific heat term) in the governing heat
equation is omitted and the problem then has no
intrinsic physically meaningful time scale.

Procedure Description
A mixed boundary condition for heat transfer was
established from nodes plate to surrounding air q
(Wm-2), by using a local film coefficient hc (Wm-2K-1)
for free convection of air (considered as ideal gas)
externally to a tilted plate [6]. This term was obtained
from semi-empirical correlations depending on a mean
Nusselt number NuL (dimensionless), which in turn is
evaluated from the Rayleigh number RaL
(dimensionless). At each node j at the boundary, this
approach matches:

where
and

hC =

Nu L

3NuL k
,
4L

(3)

CRa Ln ,

(4)

where C and n correspond to constants which take

different values depending on the disposition of the
plate (vertical, horizontal, tilted) together with the
value of RaL (dimensionless). For this particular
problem, C = 0.27 and n = . The fluid thermal
conductivity is denoted by k (Wm-1K-1), and L (m)
corresponds to the characteristic length of the
geometry for the evaluated node (longitudinal distance
from the bottom end of the plate and the node position
under study). The node surface temperature is denoted
by TFL (K), while TW (K) corresponds to the ambient
temperature. In order to determine RaL, the Prandtl
(Pr) and Grashof (GrL) numbers (dimensionless) are
used as follows:

Ra L

gE TFL  TW L3

GrL Pr

XD

(5)

where TFL is the average temperature from the Fin

Sink base to the node temperature evaluation and
(K-1) corresponds to the volumetric coefficient of
thermal expansion.:

1 wU

,
U wT P

(6)

g is the gravity acceleration (ms-2), (m2s-1) denotes

the thermal diffusivity (calculated from = k-1cp-1),
v (m2s-1) is the kinematic viscosity, (kgm-3) denotes
the density, and cp (kJkg-1K-1) corresponds to the
specific heat at constant pressure. Values for k, v,
and cp are determined by self-generated polynomial
approaches depending on the mean film temperature
Tf=(TFL+TW)/2, extracted from tables of references [6,
7]. The coefficient has been directly approached by
Tf-1, corresponding to the limit for ideal gas.
Additionally, the derivative of h with respect to TFL
has been also evaluated in order to include this
behavior in the finite element model for the boundary
condition. The radiation heat transfer has been
evaluated following the equation for hR (W/mm-2K-1)

hR

H V Tw4  Ta4  Tw  Ta 

(7)

with emmitance  of 0.7 [6], Boltzmann constant 

(5.610-14 Wmm-4K-1) and ambient temperature Ta (K).

Calculation Of Nominal Power

A CPV system is deployed according to Figure 1. It
consists of 3 injection molding lenses used as primary
optic elements (POE) with a surface of 0.0144m2 each
and an efficiency of = 80%. Therefore the total
o1

active surface of the prototype module is 0.0432m2.

The secondary optic elements (SOE) are
commercial optic parts made in solar glass and they
were used with a = 92% efficiency.
o2

The 3 solar cells are III-V multijunction cells with

an efficiency of = 38%. Thus, with all these
e

information and taken into account an AM1.5 air mass

conditions and a nominal standard irradiance of
1.000Wm-2 from the sun, the nominal peak-power of
the CPV prototype module used is 12'08 Wp. This
energy is converted directly into DC electrical energy.

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50C. Model 2 obtains h from eqs. 3 to 7. This

coefficient varies inside the fin, i.e. the convection
coefficient takes a different value in each fin point
surface according to the sink spatial position. This
method captures the heat flow generated in areas near
the convection point.
According to Figure 1, the power transferred from
the solar cell to the heat sink is 19.72W and is
introduced into the model by constant heat flux,
distributed among the elements that each solar cell
contains. The ambient temperature is introduced into
the model as an initial condition in order to ensure
good correlation of the temperatures obtained by the
model in the heat sink and experimental measures.

EXPERIMENT DESCRIPTION
A correlation experiment was run in order to
evaluate and compare the simplified finite element
model with real CPV conditions. The measures taken
are shown in Table 1.
FIGURE 1. Flux power representation in the CPV
prototype.

Implementation Of User-Subroutine
The user subroutine was implemented in
commercial software ABAQUS/Standard [8], due to
its capabilities for solving coupled and uncoupled
thermal analyses. 22200 planar quadrilateral elements
of four nodes compose the total model. The element
length is 1.9mm, small enough to capture the
temperature gradient. The mid surface geometry of the
sink is modeled in order to avoid offset thickness. The
normal elements must be defined in the same direction
as the heat flux in order to simulate the real heat flow
trajectories. Two different models were developed in
order to compare the results using the variable
convection coefficient with the user subroutine (model
1) and constant convection implemented in ABAQUS
software (model 2). In both cases similar conduction
coefficients and cell heat flux due to DC electricity
power generation are used, and the values for each are
defined under operating conditions.
The value of the conduction coefficient of the
aluminum heat sink (Figure 2 and Figure 3), 6060-T6
is 210Wm1K-1 [9]. This value is not dependent on
temperature and is used for both models. The thermal
interface material between the heat spreader and the
heat sink 3.5 Wm-1K-1 [2] is ignored in thermal
analysis. In the case of convection heat transfer for
model 1, a constant coefficient of 5.1Wm-2K-1 at 25C
and 7.0 Wm-2K-1 at 50C was used [7], and a hR
estimated of 4.1Wm-2K-1 at 25C and 4.6 Wm-2K-1 at

TABLE 1. Operation conditions of CPV experiment

Location
Martos (Spain)
GPS
37.698611N,-3.971111W
Global Irradiance
1096 Wm-2
Direct Normal Irradiance
1012 Wm-2
Ambient temperature
19C
Wind Velocity
~0ms-1

FIGURE 2. CPV prototype module installed in the solar

tracker for the experiment.

The devices used in the experiment were a thermal

imaging camera, to measure the temperature on the
surface of the heat sink; a solar tracker with sun
pointing accuracy < 0.1; and a CPV prototype module
as on Figure 2 was assembled for this experiment, with
the same characteristics as described in the Figure 1.
The heat sink which was deployed in the experiment is
shown in Figure 3.

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FIGURE 3. Heat sink scheme. Thickness: 1.1mm; and

material: extruded Aluminum 6060-T6.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

highest temperature). The results obtained by means of

the user subroutine are closer to experimental
measures than the constant convection coefficient
model (model 2).
The accuracy of convection variable coefficient
obtained in model 1 and constant convection
coefficient obtained in model 2 are compared with
experimental results by means statistical parameter:
Normalized-Root-Mean-Square error (NRMSE).
The analysis represented in Figure 5 is repeated for
the rest of solar cells in order to obtain a representative
NRMSE value of the complete model. In the case of
model 1 a 0.1 value is obtained compared with 0.13 of
the model 2. The lower value of model 1 shows better
correlation with the reality.

The temperature distribution for each model

appears in Figure 4. The user-subroutine (model 1)
obtains a better temperature gradient than constant
convection coefficient (model 2).

FIGURE 5. Temperature distribution along the main fin in

the heat sink. The distance is referenced to a solar cell
section, 0 point corresponds to the centre of the solar cell.

The CPU time spent in completing the analysis is

36s. The simulation was implemented on an Intel(R)
Xeon(R) CPU X5687 @3.60GHz with a RAM
memory of 12GB. The time consumption is minimal
compared with a complex CFD analysis [3].

CONCLUSIONS

FIGURE 4. Heat sink temperature (C) distribution for

constant convection coefficient (left) and convection
coefficient obtained via user-subroutine (right).

The temperature distribution along the heat sink fin

of both models is compared with experimental results
Figure 6. A maximum temperature difference of 0.4C
along the thickness is observer for model 1 and 0.3C
for model 2, the results plot in Figure 4 correspond to
the surface temperature. The temperature distribution
along the fin heat sink is presented in Figure 5. The
temperature distribution is presented in a orthogonal
sink section containing the mid solar cell (Cell with

The implicit user-subroutine presented in this paper

can reduce the analysis lead time in the first stages of
design and can offer engineers without detailed
knowledge of fluid mechanics a powerful tool for
designing, analyzing and optimizing heat sinks. A
numerical procedure is presented and compared with
experimental results which show a good correlation
with the CPV prototype.
This tool offers a powerful aid for designing heat
sinks in CPV solar panels. It may be used for simple
and complex geometries, improving the optimization
of thickness and shape.

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5. Hasan Baig, Keith C. Heasman, Nabin Sarmah, and

Tapas Mallick, Solar cells design for low and medium
concentrating photovoltaic system , AIP Conf. Proc.
1477, 98 (2012)
6. F.P. Incropera, D.P. DeWitt, T.L. Bergman, A. Lavine,
Fundamentals of heat and mass transfer, Madrid: John
Wiley & Sons, 2007.
7. Bejan A., Advanced Engineering Thermodynamics, John
Wiley & Sons, 2006.
8. ABAQUS documentation, Version 6.10-1.
9. Metals Handbook, Vol.2 - Properties and Selection:
Nonferrous Alloys and Special-Purpose Materials, ASM
International 10th Ed. 1990.

FIGURE 6. Thermal camera image during operation of the

CPV prototype. The distribution of temperatures agrees with
the thermal analysis.

The simplified methodology shown helps to reduce

both the product development time and the ratio /W
in CPV systems.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to appreciate the help of
M.A. Parras in the assembly of the CPV prototype
module and M. Fernandez for his kind help in the
thermal camera images processing.

REFERENCES
1. Y. Ota, H. Nagai, K.Araki and Kensuke Nishioka,
Temperature distribution in 820X CPV module during
outdoor operation, AIP Conf. Proc. 1477, 364 (2012).
2. Jie Wei, (2008). Challenges in Cooling Design of CPU
Packages for High-Performance Servers. Heat Transfer
Engineering, 29:2,178-187
3. Yue-Tzu Yang and Huan-Sen Peng. (2009). Numerical
study of thermal and hydraulic performance of
compound heat sink. Numerical Heat Transfer, Part A,
55: 432447, 2009
4. Eduardo F. Fernndez, P. Prez-Higueras, F. Almonacid,
A. J. Garca Loureiro, J. I. Fernndez et al., Quantifying
the effect of air temperature in CPV modules under
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