Thermal design space prediction in direct liquid cooling

Abstract

A software for predicting the optimum operating conditions for a two-phase liquid cooling environment is presented. This software consists of a data bank which includes a variety of physical and thermodynamic properties of fluorocarbons and includes heat transfer correlations which cover single-phase, boiling incipience, nucleate boiling, and critical heat flux. The heat flux of the integrated circuit is compared to the calculated boiling incipience heat flux and critical heat flux to determine if the operating conditions provide for nucleate boiling. The optimum operating conditions of coolant temperature, coolant flow rate, and system pressure are determined based upon the cooling schemes. Three cooling schemes are investigated: pool boiling flow boiling, and jet impingement boiling. Application of the software indicated that the jet impingement boiling has better thermal performance than flow and pool boiling.<>