Piezoelectric oscillating cantilever fan for thermal management of electronics and LEDs - A review

This review discusses piezoelectric fans and their feasibility in a cooling of electronics components and LEDs. The discussion will be restricted to fans based on an oscillating cantilever, the construction which is best known. Other possible piezoelectric fan constructions will be just shortly mentioned. Since the invention of a piezoelectric fan in late 1970s, at least hundreds of science papers have been published about them. A general level presentation of the subject and a summary of the research outcomes will be presented. The construction and operation principles of a piezoelectric fan will be presented. An introduction to piezoelectric materials will be given. The most important equations covering the oscillation of a cantilever beam and the equations for designing fan's geometry will be presented. The generated air flows of a single piezoelectric fan will be issued. This subject will be approached by executing some computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Use of an air nozzle can force the air vortices closer to laminar flow and improve the cooling effect The rather weak air flow of a single fan motivates to use multiple fans. A large number of studies have been published about multiple fan constructions. A piezoelectric fan will be compared with a conventional radial fan. An introduction to the electrical parts of a piezoelectric fan will be given. An experimental work demonstrating the use of a piezo fan for electronics cooling will be executed. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.