Thermal design considerations of air-cooled high powered telecommunication cabinets

Access networks provide the last mile of connectivity to telecommunication customers throughout the world. Voice, data, and video services through fiber, copper and wireless media are all delivered to the end user by the access portion of the network. In an access network, thermal management of active electronics and optical devices are critical to network reliability and performance. The outside plant telecom enclosures provide environmental protection for both active electronics and optical devices. These enclosures must incorporate cooling systems that support thermal requirements of the electronic and optical components. In addition to the heat load from the electronics there is also solar loading on the cabinet, which needs to be taken into account when designing a cooling system.In order to reduce the solar loading, a double walled cabinet was shown to be an effective method. In this method, air is forced between the telecommunication cabinet and the outside wall. Although the air gap is effective in reducing the solar load, its thickness was found to be insignificant [1]. Thus to reduce the cabinet dimensions, double walled cabinets with smaller air gap are recommended. However, this may impact the energy consumption of the fan and may pose acoustic problems. Hence, a study was carried out for different fan configurations and the effect it had on cabinet temperature and energy consumed by the fans were studied. From the study it was found out that there was significant change in energy consumed by fans when their location is changed.

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