a newly published white paper from advanced thermal solutions, inc. (ats) gives engineers tips on how to measure the thermal resistance of a microchannel cold plate inside a liquid cooling system.
this new white paper explains how to measure thermal resistance in microchannel cold plates. (advanced thermal solutions, inc.)
“the heat dissipation level of a liquid-cooled cold plate is determined by the heat conduction in solids and the heat convection in fluids,” the paper explains. “normally convection is the dominant factor for reducing the thermal resistance when highly conductive material is used to fabricate the heat sinks. in most cases, the single-phase flow inside microchannels is a laminar flow.”
the paper studies how channel size and material impact the thermal resistance of a cold plate and provides the equations that can be used to calculate thermal performance. four typical materials are used in the study: silicon, aluminum nitride, copper, and diamond.
“for high performance cold plates, the rcaloric will be an important factor on overall thermal resistance, besides convection thermal resistance,” the paper explained. “the only way to reduce it is by increasing the liquid flow rate, which will lead to more pressure drop and this then requires a better pump. when designing a cutting edge cold plate, engineers should pay a lot of attention to pressure drop, pumping power, system complexity and reliability while pursuing high performance.”
it concluded, “from the above data, it is obvious that by using good material and a microchannel structure, cold plates can achieve amazingly low thermal resistance rates.”
download the free white paper at https://goo.gl/98txus.
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