Study on Thermal Performance of Multiple LED Packages with Heat Pipes

Since the high heat generation of LED chips can cause a reduction in lifetime, degradation of luminous efficiency, and variation of color temperature, studies have been carried out on the optimization of LED packaging and heat sinks. Recently, LED packages have been applied to high-power lights such as car headlamps or street lights, and it is known that cooling using only free convection is not at all efficient. Thus, in this study, a heat pipe with forced convection was examined for the optimization of the cooling performance in high-power LED lights. In addition, optimal on-off control of a fan was adopted to increase the fan lifetime, since the lifetime of the fan is generally shorter than that of the LEDs.