A Fractional Derivative Modeling of Heating and Cooling of LED Luminaires

Abstract

In the context of energy efficient lighting, we present a mathematical study of the heating and cooling processes of a common type of luminaires, consisting of a single light-emitting diode source in thermal contact with an aluminum passive heat sink. First, we study stationary temperature distributions by addressing the appropriate system of partial differential equations with a commercial finite element solver. Then, we study the temporal evolution of the temperature of the chip and find that it is well approximated with a fractional derivative generalization of Newton’s cooling law. The mathematical results are compared and shown to largely agree with our laboratory measurements.

Keywords

• heat equation
• mathematical modeling
• cooling law
• fractional derivatives