Apple Computer’s recent strategy for return to the mainstream PC market depended upon the release of a next-generation, fully integrated PC/monitor combination desktop computer. Targeted at the home and education markets, this PC, called the iMAC, provides a plug-and-play system which is both easy to use and economical.

Apple teamed up with Applied Thermal Technologies, the electronics cooling consulting arm of Aavid Thermal Technologies (parent company to Fluent). Applied Thermal uses Fluent’s Icepak CFD thermal modeling software regularly to perform analyses that optimize their customers’ electronics designs. Together, Applied Thermal, Icepak, and Apple’s iMAC design team worked to develop a leading-edge solution for cooling the iMAC.

Apple’s design requirements included low cost, low acoustic noise, and minimal impact on industrial design, while still allowing the use of a high-end Power PC engine and providing for many peripheral devices. Part of the strategy included creating a chassis design that allowed sufficient cooling to all components while eliminating or at least minimizing the use of fans, vents, and heat sinks.

One of today’s most innovative computer designs, Apple’s iMAC, was optimized for electronics cooling using Icepak.

Applied Thermal began with an Icepak model that allowed optimization of vent designs, types, and locations, and then looked at performance effects on all electronics based on the fan selection and location within the box. The team was successful in developing and testing a design that uses one system fan centrally located within the chassis to maximize cooling and minimize acoustic noise. Icepak is a joint development of Fluent Inc. and ICEM-CFD Engineering.

This model is a simplified CFD design in Icepak, allowing optimization of vent sizes and locations, that the design team used to gain an understanding of the effect on the fluid and thermal dynamics of the overall system.

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