Thermal Simulation of I/O Subsystem of an All-Electronic Computer Interlocking Based on Finite Element Analysis

In this paper, the thermal simulation analysis of the I/O subsystem of an all-electronic computer interlocking (AECI) is carried out, and the finite element analysis software ANSYS Icepak is used to simulate and verify the temperature of the case in natural convection. The thermal simulation model was constructed by building the 3D structural model of each part, setting the parameters of key components, PCB board wiring, and hole passing information. According to the operating conditions of the case, set the corresponding solution parameters to build a natural convection model. The simulation results show that, first, the high-temperature area is mainly concentrated above the case, where a large number of chips with high heat consumption are concentrated, adjusting PCB layout can be a reasonable way to disperse the devices to solve the concentrating heat. Secondly, the temperature of the main heating area in the case is about 70 °C, which meets the normal working requirements of the device, for those individual components with too high temperature (>120 °C), the radiator or cooling fan can be considered.