Vandal Glass Heat Distribution and the Effect of Glass Gap Adjustments in Outdoor Digital Display Components

Abstract

The use of computational fluid dynamics/heat transfer (CFD/HT) software has become common in exploring the thermal and hydrodynamic behavior of many electronic products. Well-designed CFD/HT models are very valuable for driving the product design, but accurate models can be difficult to develop in some cases for a practical use. In CFD/HT modeling of outdoor digital displays, both the surrounding ambient temperature and solar irradiance are the major contributors to temperature rise, but most software packages are limited in simulating solar irradiance through semitransparent materials and multiple surfaces. In this study, a methodology to replace the solar irradiance with a power that should be imposed on the sun-exposed exterior glass (vandal glass) is described. As outdoor digital displays face harsher thermal challenges compared to the displays that are deployed indoors, it is necessary to come up with a display design that can best benefit from the cooling effect. There are numerous parameters that can be adjusted to optimize the display in terms of its thermal performance but in particular, this study explores the effect of adjusting the gap distance between the vandal glass and the liquid crystal display (LCD) to see how the maximum LCD temperature and fan performance are influenced.