Enclosure Cooling Requirement Calculator

Work out enclosure cooling requirement instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Enclosure Cooling Requirement Calculator

A sealed steel enclosure dissipates roughly 5.5 W per square metre per degree of temperature difference. If the internal heat load exceeds that, active cooling is needed — a filter fan when the ambient is comfortably below the target, and refrigerated cooling when it is not.

Formula

Enclosure cooling

natural dissipation = 5.5 x area x (T_internal - T_ambient); active cooling = heat load - natural

Worked example

With the default values below, Enclosure Cooling Requirement Calculator returns Active cooling required of 235.2. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Total internal heat load: 420 W
Effective enclosure surface area: 4.2 m²
Maximum internal temperature: 40 °C
Ambient temperature: 32 °C

Results

Active cooling required: 235.2 W
Natural dissipation available: 184.8 W
Available temperature difference: 8.00 °C
Recommended method: Filter fan is adequate

Step by step

1Values used
2Enclosure cooling
3Active cooling required= 235.2 W
4Natural dissipation available= 184.8 W
5Available temperature difference= 8.00 °C
6Recommended method= Filter fan is adequate

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax or compounding frequency into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why can a fan not always work?

A fan can only bring the inside toward ambient. If ambient is at or above the target temperature, no airflow will help and refrigeration is required.

What counts as effective surface area?

Faces exposed to still air. A wall-mounted enclosure loses its back face, and enclosures in a row lose their sides, so effective area is much less than total area.