scholarly journals Integration of a Multiple-Condenser Loop Heat Pipe in a Compact Air-Cooled Heat Sink

Author(s):  
H. Arthur Kariya ◽  
Daniel F. Hanks ◽  
Wayne L. Staats ◽  
Nicholas A. Roche ◽  
Martin Cleary ◽  
...  

We present the characterization of a compact, high performance air-cooled heat sink with an integrated loop heat pipe. In this configuration, heat enters the heat sink at the evaporator base and is transferred within the heat pipe by the latent heat of vaporization of a working fluid. From the condensers, the heat is transferred to the ambient air by an integrated fan. Multiple condensers are used to increase the surface area available for air-cooling, and to ensure the equal and optimal operation of the individual condensers, an additional wick is incorporated into the condensers. We demonstrated with this design (10.2 cm × 10.2 cm × 9 cm), a total thermal resistance of less than 0.1 °C/W while dissipating a heat load of 500 W from a source at 75 °C. Furthermore, constant thermal resistance was observed in the upright as well as sideways orientations. This prototype is a proof-of-concept demonstration of a high performance and efficient air-cooled heat sink design that can be readily integrated for various electronics packaging and data center applications.

Author(s):  
Nicholas A. Roche ◽  
Martin Cleary ◽  
Teresa B. Peters ◽  
Evelyn N. Wang ◽  
John G. Brisson

We report the design and analysis of a novel compensation chamber for use in PHUMP, a multiple condenser loop heat pipe (LHP) capable of dissipating 1000 W. The LHP is designed for integration into a high performance air-cooled heat sink to address thermal management challenges in advanced electronic systems. The compensation chamber is integrated into the evaporator of the device and provides a region for volumetric expansion of the working fluid over a range of operating temperatures. Additionally, the compensation chamber serves to set the liquid side pressure of the device, preventing both flooding of the condensers and dry out of the evaporator. The compensation chamber design was achieved through a combination of computational simulation using COMSOL Multiphysics and models developed based on experimental work of previous designs. The compensation chamber was fabricated as part of the evaporator using Copper and Monel sintered wicks with various particle sizes to achieve the desired operating characteristics. Currently, the compensation chamber is being incorporated into a multiple condenser LHP for a high performance air-cooled heat sink.


Author(s):  
Ahmad Saleh ◽  
Jayanta Kapat

Restriction on water consumption is becoming an increasing problem for the power generation industry. As an alternative both to once-through cooling and to surface condenser/wet-cooling tower combination, utility companies and equipment manufacturers are considering, and even implementing, air-cooled condenser (ACC). However, the industry is quite reluctant to switch over to ACC for three important reasons: (a) lower power output, (b) higher capital cost, and (c) larger physical foot-print, all because of the same reason — it is not as efficient to transfer heat from condensing steam to air as it is to transfer to water. In other words, overall thermal resistance from condensing steam to the ambient air is significantly higher than to cooling water. To get a clear and full understanding of the heat transfer process occur in air-cooling condenser, Detailed mathematical equations were derived to model the heat transfer process through the fined-tubes of the ACC. The total thermal resistance model was analyzed and investigated to identify the design components with highest affect in the process. The paper proposes a viable cooling system based on novel heat pipe technology which addresses these problems. This technology employs boiling as the means to store and transfer heat energy. A detailed mathematical set of equations was derived to model the heat pipe thermal resistance. A comparison of the heat transfer performances of the ACC technology and the proposed method is presented. The proposed cooling system suggests a solution for each of the three components of the thermal resistance, the super-hydrophobic coating of the steam ducts internal surfaces increased the condensing heat transfer rate by an order of magnitude, the proposed design of the heat pipes improved the external heat transfer, and the installation mechanism improves the fin efficiency by eliminating the contact resistance between steam duct and the heat pipe.


Author(s):  
Mitchell P. Hoesing ◽  
Gregory J. Michna

The ongoing development of faster and smaller electronic components has led to a need for new technologies to effectively dissipate waste thermal energy. The pulsating heat pipe (PHP) shows potential to meet this need, due to its high heat flux capacity, simplicity, and low cost. A 20-turn flat plate PHP was integrated into an aluminum flat plate heat sink with a simulated electronic load. The PHP heat sink used water as the working fluid and had 20 parallel channels with dimensions 2 mm × 2 mm × 119 mm. Experiments were run under various operating conditions, and thermal resistance of the PHP was calculated. The performance enhancement provided by the PHP was assessed by comparing the thermal resistance of the heat sink with no working fluid to that of it charged with water. Uncharged, the PHP was found to have a resistance of 1.97 K/W. Charged to a fill ratio of approximately 75% and oriented vertically, the PHP achieved a resistance of .49 K/W and .53 K/W when the condenser temperature was set to 20°C and 30°C, respectively. When the PHP was tilted to 45° above horizontal the PHP had a resistance of .76 K/W and .59 K/W when the condenser was set 20°C and 30°C, respectively. The PHP greatly improves the heat transfer properties of the heat sink compared to the aluminum plate alone. Additional considerations regarding flat plate PHP design are also presented.


Author(s):  
Randeep Singh ◽  
Aliakbar Akbarzadeh ◽  
Masataka Mochizuki ◽  
Thang Nguyen ◽  
Vijit Wuttijumnong

Loop heat pipe (LHP) is a very versatile heat transfer device that uses capillary forces developed in the wick structure and latent heat of evaporation of the working fluid to carry high heat loads over considerable distances. Robust behaviour and temperature control capabilities of this device has enable it to score an edge over the traditional heat pipes. In the past, LHPs has been invariably assessed for electronic cooling at large scale. As the size of the thermal footprint and available space is going down drastically, miniature size of the LHP has to be developed. In this paper, results of the investigation on the miniature LHP (mLHP) for thermal control of electronic devices with heat dissipation capacity of up to 70 W have been discussed. Copper mLHP with disk-shaped flat evaporator 30 mm in diameter and 10 mm thickness was developed. Flat evaporators are easy to attach to the heat source without any need of cylinder-plane-reducer saddle that creates additional thermal resistance in the case of cylindrical evaporators. Wick structure made from sintered nickel powder with pore size of 3–5 μm was able to provide adequate capillary forces for the continuos circulation of the working fluid, and successfully transport heat load at the required distance of 60 mm. Heat was transferred using 3 mm ID copper tube with vapour and liquid lines of 60 mm and 200 mm length respectively. mLHP showed very reliable start up at different heat loads and was able to achieve steady state without any symptoms of wick dry-out. Tests were conducted on the mLHP with evaporator and condenser at the same level. Total thermal resistance, R total of the mLHP came out to be in the range of 1–4°C/W. It is concluded from the outcomes of the investigation that mLHP with flat evaporator can be effectively used for the thermal control of the electronic equipments with restricted space and high heat flux chipsets.


Author(s):  
Garrett A. Glover ◽  
Yongguo Chen ◽  
Annie Luo ◽  
Herman Chu

The current work is a survey of applied applications of passive 2-phase technologies, such as heat pipe and vapor chamber, in heat sink designs with thin base for electronic cooling. The latest improvements of the technologies and manufacturing processes allow achievable heat sink base thickness of 3 mm as compared to around 5 mm previously. The key technical challenge has been on maintaining structural integrity for adequate hollow space for the working fluid vapor in order to retain high performance while reducing the thickness of the overall vapor chamber or flattened heat pipe. Several designs of thin vapor chamber base heat sink and embedded heat pipe heat sink from different vendors are presented for a moderate power density application of a 60 W, 13.2 mm square heat source. Numerous works have been published by both academia and commercial applications in studying the fundamental science of passive 2-phase flow technologies; their performance has been compared to solid materials, like aluminum and copper. These works have established the merits of using heat pipes and vapor chambers in electronic cooling. The intent of this paper is to provide a methodical approach to help to accelerate the process in evaluating the arrays of different commercial designs of these devices in our product design cycle. In this paper, the trade-offs between the different types of technologies are discussed for parameters such as performance advantages, physical attributes, and some cost considerations. This is a bake-off evaluation of the complete heat sink solutions from the various vendors and not a fundamental research of vapor chambers and heat pipes — for that, it is best left to the vendors and universities.


2013 ◽  
Vol 589-590 ◽  
pp. 552-558
Author(s):  
Xi Bing Li ◽  
Xun Wang ◽  
Yun Shi Ma ◽  
Zhong Liang Cao

As a highly efficient heat dissipation unit, a micro heat pipe is widely used in high heat flux microelectronic chips, and its thermal resistance is crucial to heat transfer capacity. Through analyses of the structure and heat transfer performance of a circular heat pipe with sintered wick, the theoretical model of total thermal resistance was established on heat transfer theory, and then simplified, finally a testing platform was set up to test for total thermal resistance performance. The testing results show that when the micro heat pipe is in optimal heat transfer state, its total thermal resistance conform well with that from the theoretical model, and its actual thermal resistance is much lower than that of the rod made of the material with perfect thermal conductivity and of the same geometric size. With the increment of heat transfer capability, the total thermal resistance of a micro heat pipe with sintered wick decreases first, then increases and reaches the minimum when it is in the optimal heat transfer state. The greater total thermal resistance in low heat transfer performance is mainly caused by too much working fluid accumulating in evaporator and the lower velocity in vapor cavity, and the greater total thermal resistance in high heat transfer performance is mainly due to the working fluid drying up in condenser. Total thermal resistance is related to many factors, such as thermal conductivity of tube-shell material, wall thickness, wick thickness, copper powders grain size and porosity, the lengths of condenser and evaporator, and the diameter of vapor cavity etc.. Therefore, the structure parameters of a micro heat pipe with sintered wick should be reasonably designed according to the specific conditions to ensure its heat transfer capacity and total thermal resistance to meet the requirements.


Author(s):  
Z. R. Lin ◽  
Z. Y. Lee ◽  
L. W. Zhang ◽  
S. F. Wang ◽  
A. A. Merrikh ◽  
...  

Loop heat pipe (LHP) is a highly efficient cooling device. It has gained great attention in the electronics cooling industry due to its superior heat transport capability — that is, its ability to carry heat over long distances. For this article, a miniature flat loop heat pipe (MFLHP) with rectangular-shaped evaporator was developed. The LHP’s evaporator was combined with the compensation chamber. MFLHPs with different diameters and lengths for the connecting pipeline were selected for a series of experimental studies on their heat transfer characteristics. In these experiments, pure water was used as the working fluid. The studies showed that the heat transport capability of a MFLHP with 4 mm diameter was better than that a MFLHP with 3 mm diameter. At a low thermal resistance of 0.04°C /W (at 200W), an optimal length for the connecting pipeline for a particular MFLHP with 4 mm diameter was identified. Finally, a heat sink attached to a MFLHP was developed for cooling a graphics processing unit (GPU), the thermal design power (TDP) of which was 200 W. The results showed the GPU heat sink with MFLHP had good performance and satisfied GPU cooling requirements. Compared to the conventional heat pipe solutions, only one MFLHP was able to cope with high power dissipation, offering the potential to make a lighter heat sink.


2016 ◽  
Vol 723 ◽  
pp. 282-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shen Chun Wu ◽  
Shih Hsuan Yen ◽  
Wei Chen Lo ◽  
Chen Yu Chung ◽  
Shen Jwu Su

This study investigated the use of sintered Nickel powder as the wick material of Loop heat pipe with flat evaporator (Flat loop heat pipe, FLHP) and its effect on the heat transfer performance. Add the 1-heptanol into water and form Self-rewetting Fluid (SRF), resulting in the Marangoni effect. The colder liquid can be transport to the heating surface, delaying the occurrence of dry-out and increasing the critical heat load. This paper use Surface tension measurements to measure the change of 1-heptanol SRF, then it was apply to nickel wick FLHP as working fluid to investigate its effect on the heat transfer performance. This study successfully established production process of Nickel wick structure. Results of wick structure for the effective pore radius of 2.6 μm, porosity of 62%, permeability of 5.7 × 10-13m2. Results of Surface tension measurements show that 1-heptanol aqueous solution’s surface tension increases with increasing temperature, Results from applying 0.1% 1-heptanol aqueous solution to FLHP as working fluid. For performance testing show that the critical heat load was 240 W and the total thermal resistance was 0.77 ° C/W. Compared with FLHP with pure water, SRF raised the maximum heat flux of 70%, the total thermal resistance of the system reduces 40%, SRF has the potential to enhance the heat transfer performance of FLHP.


Author(s):  
Daniel F. Hanks ◽  
Teresa B. Peters ◽  
John G. Brisson ◽  
Evelyn N. Wang

We experimentally characterized a condenser design for a multi-condenser loop heat pipe (LHP) capable of dissipating 1000 W. The LHP is designed for integration into a high performance air-cooled heat sink to address thermal management challenges in advanced electronic systems. The multi-layer stack of condensers utilizes a sintered wick design to stabilize the liquid-vapor interface and prevent liquid flooding of the lower condenser layers in the presence of a gravitational head. In addition a liquid subcooler is incorporated to suppress vapor flashing in the liquid return line. We fabricated the condensers using photo-chemically etched Monel frames with Monel sintered wicks with particle sizes up to 44 μm. We characterized the performance of the condensers in a custom experimental flow rig that monitors the pressure and temperatures of the vapor and liquid. The condenser dissipated the required heat load with a subcooling of up to 18°C, while maintaining a stable liquid-vapor interface with a capillary pressure of 6.2 kPa. In the future, we will incorporate the condenser into a loop heat pipe for a high performance air-cooled heat sink.


Author(s):  
Yan Chen ◽  
Lin Cheng ◽  
Gongming Xin ◽  
Tao Luan

The loop heat pipe (LHP) was invented in Russia in the early 1980’s. It is a two-phase heat transfer device that utilizes the evaporation and condensation of a working fluid to transfer heat, and the capillary force developed in fine porous wicks to circulate the fluid. The temperature of LHP evaporator as functions of the heat load, sink temperature, ambient temperature is an important parameter which can reflect the performance of an LHP. Many factors can affect the LHP operating temperature and which can be divided into two parts: external and internal. The external factors including heat sink temperature, ambient temperature, fluid forces, the position between heat source and heat sink and the heat exchange between LHP and ambient. The internal factors related to the design and structure of the LHP, for example, the charging amount of the working fluid and the distribution status of the liquid phase during the LHP operating. Based on Sinda/Fluint software an ammonia-stainless steel steady state model of loop heat pipe was established, the impacts on the LHP operating temperature induced by alterable heat loads under 3 operating cases (the different position between evaporator and condenser, the changing of ambient temperature and the changing of heat sink temperature) were analyzed and conclusions were made. Changing the position between evaporator and condenser has a significant influence on the LHP operating temperature. Anti-gravity operation will reduce the performance of the LHP, this phenomenon is obviously in low heat load range. Further more, increasing of fluid pressure drop in the loop will induce decreasing of the LHP performance. The temperature difference between ambient and heat sink will influence the transition heat load (from variable conductance mode to fixed conductance mode), the bigger the temperature difference the higher the transition heat load.


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