APPLICATION OF A THERMAL NETWORK METHOD TO NON-STEADY THERMAL ANALYSIS OF ELECTRONIC DEVICES

Masaru Ishizuka (Japan), Shinji Nakagawa (Japan), Tadashi Hachiga (Japan) and Hiroki Ishida (Japan)

Received November 29, 2007

Abstract

The thermal network method was applied to the non-steady thermal analysis of thermal heads used in high speed thermal printers and was also applied to the non-steady thermal analysis of phase change process of the ink with some proposed models. The paper describes the thermal network modeling and the relationships among pertinent parameters, such as heating duration and applied power, which can be easily measured as compared to temperature, by varying the protective layer thickness and glazed layer thickness as example parameters. It was found that the thermal network method is a very useful tool from the viewpoint of preliminary thermal design for electronic devices due to its simplicity and that the effects of the parameters, such as the protective layer thickness and the glazed layer thickness, on the thermal performance of the thermal printer head become stronger for a shorter heating duration. This means that thermal analysis is very important especially in designing high speed thermal printers.

Keywords and phrases: application of a thermal network method, non-steady thermal analysis, thermal design, high speed thermal printers, thermal printer head.