Recent Developments in Air Pumps for Thermal Management of Electronics

For electronics, poor thermal management could cause severe mechanical and electrical failures. Forced convective air cooling, i.e., flowing air over a hot surface, is one of the most efficient and economical solutions to manage thermal issues of electronics. Air pump is used to initiate and sustain airflow required in forced convection. This paper reviews both the mechanical and the nonmechanical air pumps that have been using widely in current electronics or have a great potential in future electronics. The mechanical pumps include axial fans, blowers, beam fans, and diaphragm pumps, while the nonmechanical pump specifically focuses on electrohydrodynamic pumps. This paper presents the working principle first and then the recent developments, including the pump itself (design, characteristics, etc.) and the applications in thermal management (placement, integration, etc.). In the end, this paper conducts the strength analysis (flow rate, pressure, noise, flexibility, and reliability) among the reviewed five types of air pumps.

Nanofluids for the Next Generation Thermal Management of Electronics: A Review

Nowadays, the thermal management of electronic components, devices and systems is one of the most important challenges of this technological field. The ever-increasing miniaturization also entails the pressing need for the dissipation of higher power energy under the form of heat per unit of surface area by the cooling systems. The current work briefly describes the use on those cooling systems of the novel heat transfer fluids named nanofluids. Although not intensively applied in our daily use of electronic devices and appliances, the nanofluids have merited an in-depth research and investigative focus, with several recently published papers on the subject. The development of this cooling approach should give a sustained foothold to go on to further studies and developments on continuous miniaturization, together with more energy-efficient cooling systems and devices. Indeed, the superior thermophysical properties of the nanofluids, which are highlighted in this review, make those innovative fluids very promising for the aforementioned purpose. Moreover, the present work intends to contribute to the knowledge of the nanofluids and its most prominent results from the typical nanoparticles/base fluid mixtures used and combined in technical and functional solutions, based on fluid-surface interfacial flows.

Study of a Loop Thermosyphon Evaporator for Thermal Control of Aircrafts

This work presents experimental studies of a two-phase loop thermosyphon, designed to use the aircraft fuselage low temperatures at high altitude to promote passive thermal management of electronics components in avionics. The main purpose of this work is to develop the evaporator of a loop thermosyphon composed of one evaporator coupled to two condensers presented in the literature. The proposed evaporator comprises ten square stacked copper plates bonded by diffusion. Channels were manufactured in the inner plates so that internal grooves are obtained after the stack is bonded. Studies with concentrated and distributed heat sources over the evaporator external surface are under performance. Parameters such as start-up and operation temperatures will be compared, according to the condition submitted.