Thermal performance of cold plates

Abstract

This report explores the possibility of combining manifold microchannels together with jet impingement to improve on thermal capabilities of heat sink devices. Both manifold microchannels and jet impingement methods are widely used in the industry because of their practicality and effectiveness in cooling the heat sink. Hence, the author sims to combine both methods together to harness the benefits of both manifold microchannels and jet impingement methods.

For this study, a jet impingement system is integrated at the bottom of a manifold microchannel system for the coolant to spray onto the cold plate with pin fins. The material of the cold plate was aluminum alloy AlSi10Mg while the fluid used to cool the cold plate was deionised water. The material of the manifold jet impingement used was polycarbonate. The manifold jet impingement prototype was compared to a baseline with varying heat load and flow rate in the turbulent range.

Despite the benefits of both manifold and jet impingement methods, the result does not conclusively support the fact that both methods can be integrated to better enhance both thermal cooling capabilities. The findings reveal that there is a significant pressure drop in the manifold jet impingement due to the sudden decrease in cross-sectional area could affect the Coefficient of Power and Thermal Resistance of the manifold jet impingement system.

This provides a direction in which by reducing the pressure drop by means of Reynolds Number or overall design of manifold jet impingement, the integration of both the manifold microchannel and jet impingement methods can ultimately be obtained.