A piezoelectric actuator concept for LED cooling by ultrasonic streaming

The thermal management of high power LED bears the potential of achieving higher efficiencies as well as an increased lifetime. Yet so far none of the conventional cooling techniques are suitable for use with general illumination: The devices emit audible noise, have a short life time, or are sensitive against dust and debris. The goal behind this work was to develop a solution that has none of these drawbacks. The effect of acoustic streaming was chosen for a closer look and delivered very good results during first experiments. Within this paper a device will be presented that is able to cool a 5000 lm LED light engine without emitting any audible sound. To achieve this all aspects of the device were examined and optimized.