Experimental study on cooling of mobile phone with PCM

• Main Author: Ng, Joel Weixiong.
• Other Authors: Tan Fock Lai
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/53418
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

As smartphones continue to develop at an alarming rate, the technology that complements them improves speedily as well. From the Iphone to the Samsung smartphones, producers are compacting as much software and hardware as they can into a pocket-sized mobile without compromising on quality. As such, these phones are not only getting slimmer, they are getting more powerful as well. And because of this, more heat is generated within the smartphone itself. Thus, something must be done to control this heat and prevent it from causing any discomfort to the user. This report is done to test the effectiveness of using phase change material fabric (PCM Fabric) to absorb the heat from the heat source within the smartphone. A mock smartphone model was fabricated. It consist of a Teflon base and a Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) back casing. A mock battery was also produced to simulate a real battery. A microchip heater was positioned in the middle of the model smartphone and the mock battery was placed above it. Different layers of PCM fabric was placed on the underside of the back casing for testing. The smartphone model was set-up by connecting it to a DC power supply. Testing was done with different power supply, from 5.16W to 7W and 10W. Thermocouples were placed at the heater and 5 other parts of the upper side of the casing, including the middle where heat is mostly felt by users. The results conclude that the use of PCM fabric is desirable as temperatures were able to be kept lower relative to when no PCM fabric was used. Even though the power supply had been increased to 10W, the temperatures on the casing was kept below our threshold temperature value of 45oC.