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Semiconductor thermal management is becoming a bottleneck challenge that restricts further development in the electronics industry. Compromising processor thermal requirements will impact the processor performance and reliability. Heat sinks are designed to increase the available surface area of an electronic component and allow for more heat to be easily dissipated. As a result, the thermal characterization of the heat sinks plays a critical role in electronics thermal management. In this study, a flexible experimental apparatus is designed, built, and assembled to characterize and test various electronics components in different aerodynamics and thermal conditions. This novel experimental apparatus allows for controlled characterization of the various heat sinks with different heights as well as realistic scenarios with air bypass at server level. Moreover, a general guideline on precise experimental procedure to characterize air cooled heat sinks is developed. The results show that introduced method reduces the experimental error by 26%. 

Impingement split flow liquid-cooled microchannel cold plates are one of several flow configurations used for single-phase liquid cooling. Split flow or top-in/side-exit (TISE) cold plates divide the flow into two branches thus resulting in halved or reduced flow rates and flow lengths, compared to traditional side-in /side-exit (SISE) or parallel flow cold plates. This has the effect of reducing the pressure drop because of the shorter flow length and lower flow rate and increasing the heat transfer coefficient due to thermally developing as opposed to fully developed flow. It is also claimed that the impinging flow increases the heat transfer coefficient on the base plate in the region of impingement. Because of the downward impinging and turning flow, there are no exact analytical models for this flow configuration. Computational and experimental studies have been performed, but there are no useful compact analytical models in the literature that can be used to predict the performance of these impingement cold plates. Results are presented for novel physics-based laminar flow models for a TISE microchannel cold plate based on an equivalent parallel channel flow approach. We show that the new models accurately predict the thermal-hydraulic performance over a wide range of parameters.

 

Forecasting data center cooling demand remains a primary thermal management challenge in an increasingly larger global energy-consuming industry. This paper proposes a dynamic modeling approach to evaluate two different strategies for delivering cold air into a data center room. The common cooling method provides air through perforated floor tiles by means of a centralized distribution system, hindering flow management at the aisle level. We propose an idealized system such that five overhead heat exchangers are located above the aisle and handle the entire server cooling demand. In one case, the overhead heat exchangers force the airflow downwards into the aisle (Overhead Downward Flow (ODF)); in the other case, the flow is forced to move upwards (Overhead Upward Flow (OUF)). A complete fluid dynamic, heat transfer, and thermodynamic analysis is proposed to model the system’s thermal performance under both steady state and transient conditions. Inside the servers and heat exchangers, the flow and heat transfer processes are modeled using a set of differential equations solved in MATLAB™. This solution is coupled with ANSYS-Fluent™, which computes the three-dimensional velocity, temperature, and turbulence on the Airside. The two approaches proposed (ODF and OUF) are evaluated and compared by estimating their cooling effectiveness and the local Entropy Generation. The latter allows identifying the zones within the room responsible for increasing the inefficiencies (irreversibilities) of the system. Both approaches demonstrated similar performance, with a small advantage shown by OUF. The results of this investigation demonstrated a promising approach of data center on-demand cooling scenarios. 

Data Center hybrid air/liquid cooling systems such as rear door heat exchangers, overhead and in row cooling systems enable localized, on-demand cooling, or “smart cooling.” At the heart of all hybrid cooling systems is an air to liquid cross flow heat exchanger that regulates the amount of cooling delivered by the system by modulating the liquid or air flows and/or temperatures. Due the central role that the heat exchanger plays in the system response, understanding the transient response of the heat exchanger is crucial for the precise control of hybrid cooling system. This paper reports on the transient experimental characterization of heat exchangers used in data centers applications. An experimental rig designed to introduce controlled transient perturbations in temperature and flow on the inlet air and liquid flow streams of a 12 in. × 12 in. heat exchanger test core is discussed. The conditioned air is delivered to the test core by a suction wind tunnel with upstream air heaters and a frequency variable axial blower to allow the control of air flow rate and bulk temperature. The conditioned water is delivered to the test core by a water delivery system consisting of two separate water circuits, one delivering cold water, and the other hot water. By switching from one circuit to the other or mixing water from both circuits, the rig is capable of generating step, ramp and frequency perturbations in water temperature at constant flow or step, ramp or frequency perturbations in water flow at constant temperature or combinations of temperature and water flow perturbations. Experimental data are presented for a 12×12 heat exchanger core with a single liquid pass under different transient perturbations 

The most common approach to air cooling of data centers involves the pressurization of the plenum beneath the raised floor and delivery of air flow to racks via perforated floor tiles. This cooling approach is thermodynamically inefficient due in large part to the pressure losses through the tiles. Furthermore, it is difficult to control flow at the aisle and rack level since the flow source is centralized rather than distributed. Distributed cooling systems are more closely coupled to the heat generating racks. In overhead cooling systems, one can distribute flow to distinct aisles by placing the air mover and water cooled heat exchanger directly above an aisle. Two arrangements are possible: (i.) placing the air mover and heat exchanger above the cold aisle and forcing downward flow of cooled air into the cold aisle (Overhead Downward Flow (ODF)), or (ii.) placing the air mover and heat exchanger above the hot aisle and forcing heated air upwards from the hot aisle through the water cooled heat exchanger (Overhead Upward Flow (OUF)). This study focuses on the steady and transient behavior of overhead cooling systems in both ODF and OUF configurations and compares their cooling effectiveness and energy efficiency. The flow and heat transfer inside the servers and heat exchangers are modeled using physics based approaches that result in differential equation based mathematical descriptions. These models are programmed in the MATLAB™ language and embedded within a CFD computational environment (using the commercial code FLUENT™) that computes the steady or instantaneous airflow distribution. The complete computational model is able to simulate the complete flow and thermal field in the airside, the instantaneous temperatures within and pressure drops through the servers, and the instantaneous temperatures within and pressure drops through the overhead cooling system. Instantaneous overall energy consumption (1st Law) and exergy destruction (2nd Law) were used to quantify overall energy efficiency and to identify inefficiencies within the two systems. The server cooling effectiveness, based on an effectiveness-NTU model for the servers, was used to assess the cooling effectiveness of the two overhead cooling approaches