A Study on Thermal Characteristics for Hand Carried Ultrasound System

This paper intends to suggest a design to reduce the thermal load of a hand-carried ultrasound (HCU) system, with the aim of increasing the product life. To design ways to reduce the heat load, the surface temperatures of key parts of an HCU system were measured as the 4 system cooling fans, which have a direct relation to the system life, were operated normally. When the derating rate of 80% was applied while the fans of the HCU system were operated abnormally, it was observed that the key image processing parts exceeded the surface temperature (TC) with consideration to derating. Since the part surface temperature did not exceed the derated level when the regulated voltage was derated from 12V to 9V, it is expected to lower the operating voltage of the fans to 9V to increase the fan and HCU system lifetime by 1.8 times.