Thermal characteristics of 20 W LED module on light thermal conductive plastic (TCP) heat sink were investigated in comparison with that on aluminum die casting alloy (ADC-12). Thermal simulations of the heat sinks were conducted by using flow simulation of SolidWorks with the following input parameters: density is 1.70 and 2.82 kg/㎡, thermal conductivity is 20 and 92 W/(m·K) for TCP and ADC-12, respectively. The simulated and measured temperatures of the LED modules on TCP heat sink were consistent with its measured temperature, which was 3℃ higher that on ADC-12. The fabricated LED module on TCP heat sink with a weight of 120.5 g was 30% lighter in weight than that of the ADC-12 reference with 171.0 g.

This study will design the structural optimization of 21 W LED heat sink using the thermal conductive plastic materials. The thermal conductive plastic heat sink is inferior to aluminum heat sinks in thermal properties. This study will solve this problem using formability of thermal conductive plastic heat sink. A heat sink was optimized in terms of the number, and the thickness of fins and the base thickness of the heat sink, using the Heatsinkdesigner software. Also by using Solid Works Flow simulation and thermal analysis software, the thermal characteristics of the heat sink were analyzed. As the result, the optimized heat sink has 17 fins, which are 1.5mm thick and a 3.7 mm-thick base. The highest and the lowest temperature were 51.65℃ and 46.24℃ respectively. Based on these results, The thermal conductive plastic heat sink is considered possible to overcome heating problem when designing in complex structure.