Natural convection and passive heat rejection from two heat sources maintained at different temperatures on a printed circuit board

Natural convection and passive heat rejection from two independent heat sources maintained at different temperatures (60°C and 100°C above ambient) on single circuit boards (FR4 and copper clad FR4) are experimentally studied. The effect of heat source location on maximum power dissipation is presented for both horizontal and vertical orientations. Heat losses due to radiation, natural convection and board conduction are quantified. As long as the heat sources are more than 2 cm apart, they do not influence each other on the FR4 board. Vertical orientation increases the power dissipation in the components by up to 30% for the FR4 board and 15% for the copper clad board. Two ounces of copper cladding increases the overall power dissipation by 150-190%.