ADVANCED THERMAL MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY FOR SPORTS STADIUM LIGHTS

Operators of sports stadiums and large outdoor entertainment venues might not spend much time thinking about stadium lights, at least not until those lights fail. When those lights do fail, facility managers quickly discover that one of the primary causes of stadium light failure is excessive heat buildup in light fixtures and luminaires. The lifespans of stadium lights can be extended and failure prevented when those lights include advanced thermal management technology. Thermal management lowers a fixture’s physical operating temperature by channeling heat away from the optical and electronic components of the fixture.

ZOKIN LED’s Unified Fixture Engineering

thermal conductivity chartNext generation stadium lighting, like all lighting for industrial and commercial purposes, is much more than just a large light bulb that fits into a socket. LED stadium lights, for example, integrate optics, electronics, and thermal management into a unified system. Solid state electronics in LED stadium lights operate under a continuous heavy electrical load. The failure of a fixture’s electronic components over time is often the result of a thermal management system that does not dissipate the heat that builds up under that electrical load, thus allowing heat to slowly degrade the fixtures electric light-generating components. Even if an LED lamp does not experience a catastrophic failure, its lumen levels and color qualities will suffer over long periods of use if the lamp is allowed to operate at higher physical temperatures.

LED engineers typically add metal fins to stadium light luminaires to increase the surface area available for convective and conductive thermal cooling of an LEDs. Die-cast aluminum is the most common material used for those fins, largely because of its low cost. Other materials, such as copper, have superior heat transfer capabilities but are more expensive and add to the cost of stadium light fixtures. ZOKIN LED utilizes an advanced thermal management system in our stadium lights that combines aluminum fins with copper tubing embedded in the fins. The tubing extends perpendicularly away from the LED stadium light’s electronic components to transfer a maximum amount of heat away from those components as quickly and efficiently as any thermal management system will allow.

led heat sink

ZOKIN LED fixtures integrate conductive copper bars into extruded aluminum for maximum thermal conductivity.

A typical ZOKIN LED stadium light luminaire includes our proprietary thermal management fin design that are constructed entirely of aluminum and copper and that increase the available surface area for convective and conductive cooling on each luminaire by approximately 79 square feet. ZOKIN’s designers have added this extra surface area without significantly impacting the profile or shape of the luminaires. Cross-sectional cutouts of those fins show how we have melded copper tubes into the aluminum to increase heat transfer away from the luminaire’s electronics. We adopted this strategy after analyzing the heat transfer capabilities of different metals.

As you’ll note in the following video, ZOKIN engineers have demonstrated the science behind their decision by heating samples of copper and aluminum in hot water. The copper sample heats up significantly faster, which reveals that metal’s ability to absorb and conduct heat faster and to transfer that heat away from its source more effectively.

ZOKIN LED has pioneered the field of advanced thermal management technology for LED stadium lights and other industrial and commercial applications. Our world-renowned engineering team continues to develop new tools and techniques that draw heat away from an LED lamp’s electronics to extend the lamp’s lifespan and to improve its color and lumen characteristics.

Our LED stadium lights have been installed at indoor and outdoor stadiums, playing fields, and natatoriums around the world. We have a network of representatives and affiliates throughout North America who can answer your question on advanced thermal management of LED stadium lighting systems.

To connect with them or to request more information about our stadium lighting products and services, please see our website or call +86 138-2870-7813to speak with an LED stadium light specialist.