Abstract
Transistor density trends till recently have been following Moore's law, doubling every generation resulting in increased power density. The computational performance gains with the breakdown of Moore's law were achieved by using multi-core processors, leading to non-uniform power distribution and localized high temperatures making thermal management even more challenging. Cold plate-based liquid cooling has proven to be one of the most efficient technologies in overcoming these thermal management issues. Traditional liquid-cooled data center deployments provide a constant flow rate to servers irrespective of the workload, leading to excessive consumption of coolant pumping power. Therefore, a further enhancement in the efficiency of implementation of liquid cooling in data centers is possible. The present investigation proposes the implementation of dynamic cooling using an active flow control device to regulate the coolant flow rates at the server level. This device can aid in pumping power savings by controlling the flow rates based on server utilization. The FCD design contains a V-cut ball valve connected to a micro servo motor used for varying the device valve angle. The valve position was varied to change the flow rate through the valve by servo motor actuation based on pre-decided rotational angles. The device operation was characterized by quantifying the flow rates and pressure drop across the device by changing the valve position using both CFD and experiments. The proposed FCD was able to vary the flow rate between 0.09 lpm to 4 lpm at different valve positions.
Thermal Analysis of Cold Plate with Different Configurations for Thermal Management of a Lithium-Ion Battery
