Vapor-Chamber Performance Evaluation: The Challenge of Impartial Cross-Platform Comparison

Abstract

The worldwide power electronics market is expected to expand at an annual growth rate of 4.7% from USD 35.1 billion in 2020 to USD 44.2 billion by 2025 [1]. This rise is fueled by the use of renewable energy sources throughout the world, and the increasing utilization of power electronics in the production of electric vehicles. The expanding implementation of power electronics in consumer products is another key driver of the market's growth. The most significant impediment in the electronic systems is their thermal management. Two-phase cooling is currently the standard thermal-management solution in all its forms, including heat pipes, vapor chambers, thermosyphons, and so on. But comparing the performance of different systems poses many challenges, thus making decision making difficult in the absence of complete information for each device.In this study, a list of ten critical elements or parameters required to unambiguously characterize the design and performance of a promising two-phase heat-transfer system for future deployment and development, namely the vapor chamber, is presented. This "Decalogue" is inspired by three main factors. First, the rising demand for better and more effective vapor chamber assemblies, which has prompted both industry and academia to invest substantially in related R&D. Second, this investment has resulted in a plethora of new systems (i.e. [2] –[6] etc.) where each design has been accompanied with insufficient description, making it difficult, if not impossible, to perform detailed comparisons across different designs/approaches. Third, the need to develop a common set of standards for describing such systems so that similar designs/philosophies may be compared successfully by researchers and developers seeking to duplicate results and improve on previous performance, especially in commercialized systems.We seek to gather all criteria needed to characterize each vapor chamber system, while exhibiting all benefits and limitations of its design, and illustrating what type of technical application the design may be helpful for, using a simple tabular method. The suggested approach might serve as a reference point or a standard way of accurately representing this type of heat transfer component. This description should benefit researchers in the area by clearly stating what the actual measurements/attributes of each system are, while also emphasizing the relevance/importance of each design by simply comparing it to others. The ten (deca) points presented here merely illustrate the most essential aspects of the design and performance of any vapor chamber.