A Numerical and Experimental Study of a Novel Heat Sink Design for Natural Convection Cooling of LED Grow Lights

Ram Adhikari, Dawood Beyragh, Majid Pahlevani and David Wood
Additional contact information
Ram Adhikari: Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Dawood Beyragh: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Majid Pahlevani: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada
David Wood: Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 16, 1-19

Abstract: Light-emitting diode (LED) grow lights are increasingly used in large-scale indoor farming to provide controlled light intensity and spectrum to maximize photosynthesis at various growth stages of plants. As well as converting electricity into light, the LED chips generate heat, so the boards must be properly cooled to maintain the high efficiency and reliability of the LED chips. Currently, LED grow lights are cooled by forced convection air cooling, the fans of which are often the points of failure and also consumers of a significant amount of power. Natural convection cooling is promising as it does not require any moving parts, but one major design challenge is to improve its relatively low heat transfer rate. This paper presents a novel heat sink design for natural convection cooling of LED grow lights. The new design consists of a large rectangular fin array with openings in the base transverse to the fins to increase air flow, and hence the heat transfer. Numerical simulations and experimental testing of a prototype LED grow light with the new heat sink showed that openings achieved their intended purpose. It was found that the new heat sink can transfer the necessary heat flux within the safe operating temperature range of LED chips, which is adequate for cooling LED grow lights.

Keywords: LED grow light; heat transfer; natural convection cooling; rectangular fins with openings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/16/4046/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/16/4046/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:16:p:4046-:d:394705

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().