U.S. patent application number 12/586324 was filed with the patent office on 2010-09-23 for liquid cooled heat sink for multiple separated heat generating devices.
This patent application is currently assigned to ACBEL POLYTECH INC.. Invention is credited to Wen-Hsiung Chen, Chien-An Chou, Chun-Chieh Chu, Chia-Hao Lin.
Application Number | 20100236761 12/586324 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 42736480 |
Filed Date | 2010-09-23 |
United States Patent
Application |
20100236761 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Chou; Chien-An ; et
al. |
September 23, 2010 |
Liquid cooled heat sink for multiple separated heat generating
devices
Abstract
A liquid cooled heat sink has a thermal conduction plate and a
liquid cooling module. The liquid cooling module is attached
securely to the thermal conduction plate and has a distribution
tank, a collection tank and a pipe assembly. The pipe assembly has
multiple pipes of at least two different gauges and each pipe has a
pipe inlet and a pipe outlet respectively secured to the
distribution tank and the collection tank. Since a sum of the
gauges is increased and each pipe need not to be coiled, an extra
strong pumping system is not needed and design complexity is
reduced.
Inventors: |
Chou; Chien-An; (Taipei
Hsien, TW) ; Chen; Wen-Hsiung; (Taipei Hsien, TW)
; Lin; Chia-Hao; (Taipei Hsien, TW) ; Chu;
Chun-Chieh; (Taipei Hsien, TW) |
Correspondence
Address: |
COOPER & DUNHAM, LLP
30 Rockefeller Plaza, 20th Floor
NEW YORK
NY
10112
US
|
Assignee: |
ACBEL POLYTECH INC.
|
Family ID: |
42736480 |
Appl. No.: |
12/586324 |
Filed: |
September 21, 2009 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
165/104.28 ;
165/104.19; 165/104.33; 165/168 |
Current CPC
Class: |
F28F 1/22 20130101; H01L
23/473 20130101; H01L 2924/0002 20130101; F28F 3/12 20130101; H01L
2924/0002 20130101; H01L 2924/00 20130101; F28D 15/00 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
165/104.28 ;
165/104.19; 165/104.33; 165/168 |
International
Class: |
F28D 15/00 20060101
F28D015/00; F28F 7/00 20060101 F28F007/00 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Mar 19, 2009 |
TW |
098108854 |
Claims
1. A liquid cooled heat sink for multiple separated heat generating
devices comprising: a thermal conduction plate having a contact
surface thermal contacting with the multiple separated heat
generating devices; a cooling surface; and two side edges; and a
liquid cooling module being attached securely to the thermal
conduction plate and having a distribution tank being disposed
adjacent to one of the side edges of the thermal conduction plate
and having at least one distribution inlet and multiple
distribution outlets; a collection tank being located adjacent to
one of the side edges of the thermal conduction plate and having
multiple collection inlets and at least one collection outlet; and
a pipe assembly having multiple pipes of at least two different
gauges and each pipe having a pipe inlet, a pipe outlet
respectively secured to the distribution outlets and the collection
inlets, thereby communicating with the distribution tank and the
collection tank.
2. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 1, wherein the
pipes have at least two different interior diameters to form the at
least two different gauges.
3. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 1, wherein the
pipes have different morphology of interior surfaces of the pipes
to form the at least two gauges, wherein at least one pipe has a
zigzag interior surface.
4. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 1, wherein the
pipes have different morphology of interior surfaces of the pipes
to form the at least two gauges, wherein at least one of the pipes
has a ragged interior surface.
5. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 3, wherein the
pipes have different morphology of interior surfaces of the pipes
to form the at least two gauges, wherein at least one of the pipes
has a ragged interior surface.
6. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 1, wherein the
pipes have different morphology of interior surfaces of the pipes
to form the at least two gauges, wherein at least one of the pipes
has a grid embedded interior surface.
7. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 3, wherein the
pipes have different morphology of interior surfaces of the pipes
to form the at least two gauges, wherein at least one of the pipes
has a grid embedded interior surface.
8. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 5, wherein the
pipes have different morphology of interior surfaces of the pipes
to form the at least two gauges, wherein at least one of the pipes
has a grid embedded interior surface.
9. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 8, wherein the
liquid cooling module is mounted securely on the cooling surface of
the thermal conduction plate.
10. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 8, wherein the
liquid cooling module is formed in the thermal conduction
plate.
11. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 1, wherein the
thermal conduction plate has two plates each having an inner
surface, the inner surface of each plate having a recessed
distribution tank, a recessed collection tank and a recessed pipe
assembly that are corresponding respectively to the distribution
tank, collection tank and pipes, wherein depths of the recessed
pipes correspond to gauges of the pipes.
12. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 1, wherein the
pipes of the pipe assembly have different lengths, and longer pipes
have larger gauges.
13. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 2, wherein the
pipes of the pipe assembly have different lengths, and longer pipes
have larger gauges.
14. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 3, wherein the
pipes of the pipe assembly have different lengths, and longer pipes
have larger gauges.
15. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 4, wherein the
pipes of the pipe assembly have different lengths, and longer pipes
have larger gauges.
16. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 5, wherein the
pipes of the pipe assembly have different lengths, and longer pipes
have larger gauges.
17. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 6, wherein the
pipes of the pipe assembly have different lengths, and longer pipes
have larger gauges.
18. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 7, wherein the
pipes of the pipe assembly have different lengths, and longer pipes
have larger gauges.
19. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 8, wherein the
pipes of the pipe assembly have different lengths, and longer pipes
have larger gauges.
20. The liquid cooled heat sink as claimed in claim 9, wherein the
pipes of the pipe assembly have different lengths, and longer pipes
have larger gauges.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] 1. Field of Invention
[0002] The present invention relates to a heat sink, and more
particularly to a liquid cooled heat sink for multiple heat
generating devices placed at different position.
[0003] 2. Description of the Related Art
[0004] A heat sink is very important to maintaining normal function
of a machine or a computer system during prolonged operation. In
the computer system, chips and power switches of the computer
system generate heat during operation so heat sinks are mounted on
surfaces of the chips and power switches to continuously cool the
chips and the power switches together.
[0005] With reference to FIG. 11, a conventional liquid heat sink
for a server system comprises a thermal conduction plate (60) and a
single liquid pipe (70). The thermal conduction plate (60) has a
contact surface (61) and a top surface (62). The contact surface
(61) contacts multiple heat generating devices (80) of the server
system. The liquid pipe (70) is a curved pipe having a constant
diameter, is mounted on the top surface (62) and has an inlet (71)
and an outlet (72). Coolant flows from the inlet (71) to the outlet
(72) to take heat away from the thermal conduction plate (60),
thereby cooling the heat generating devices (80).
[0006] However, the thermal conduction plate (60) has the following
disadvantages:
[0007] 1. To improve a cooling uniformity of the thermal conduction
plate (60), the single liquid pipe (70) is coiled on the top
surface (62), which causes an increased flow resistance. Therefore,
a stronger pumping system is necessary to provide a larger pumping
force so that the coolant flows smoothly in the liquid pipe (70),
thus the cost is increased. Further, the liquid pipe (70) may be
damaged when bending into shape causing reduced flow or
rejection.
[0008] 2. To uniformly covers the thermal conduction plate (60)
with using the single and continuous liquid pipe (70), a length of
the liquid pipe (70) has to long enough so that the liquid pipe
(70) may be coiledly mounted on the thermal conduction plate (60).
However, a temperature gradient of the coolant between the inlet
(71) and the outlet (72) is increased when the liquid pipe (70) is
long and is more coiled for improving cooling area. Generally, the
inlet (71) has lower temperature than the outlet (72) has, which
means that a heat exchanging ability at the inlet (71) remarkable.
Therefore, the coolant draws more heat near the inlet (71) and less
near the outlet (72) causing a heat gradient over the thermal
conduction plate (60) to fluctuate. Therefore, layout of a
motherboard is so limited that must be designed with referring to
the heat gradient of the thermal conduction plate (60) thus let
main heat generating devices (80) are located near the inlet (71)
to increase a cooling ability. Hence, the aforementioned
considerations increase complexity of designing component layout of
the motherboard.
[0009] The present invention provides a liquid cooled heat sink to
obviate or mitigate the shortcomings of the conventional heat
sink.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0010] The primary objective of the present invention is to provide
a liquid cooled heat sink having a plurality of different gauge
pipes.
[0011] The liquid cooled heat sink has a thermal conduction plate
and a liquid cooling module. The liquid cooling module is attached
securely to the thermal conduction plate and has a distribution
tank, a collection tank and a pipe assembly. The pipe assembly has
multiple pipes of at least two different gauges and each pipe has a
pipe inlet and a pipe outlet respectively secured to the
distribution tank and the collection tank. Since a sum of the
gauges is increased and each pipe need not to be coiled, an extra
strong pumping system is not needed and design complexity is
reduced.
[0012] Other objectives, advantages and novel features of the
invention will become more apparent from the following detailed
description when taken in conjunction-with-the accompanying
drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0013] FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a liquid cooled heat sink in
accordance with the present invention;
[0014] FIG. 2 is a partially exploded perspective view of the
liquid cooled heat sink in FIG. 1;
[0015] FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view of a liquid cooling
module of the liquid cooled heat sink in FIG. 1;
[0016] FIG. 4 is a top view of the liquid cooled heat sink in FIG.
1;
[0017] FIG. 5 is an exploded perspective view of a second
embodiment of the liquid cooled heat sink in accordance with the
present invention;
[0018] FIG. 6 is a perspective view of a third embodiment of the
liquid cooled heat sink in accordance with the present
invention;
[0019] FIG. 7 is a cross-sectional view of a first embodiment of a
pipe having a smooth interior surface in FIG. 6;
[0020] FIG. 8 is a cross-sectional view of a second embodiment of a
pipe having a zigzag interior surface in FIG. 6;
[0021] FIG. 9 is a cross-sectional view of a third embodiment of a
pipe having a ragged interior surface in FIG. 6;
[0022] FIG. 10 is a cross-sectional view of a fourth embodiment of
a pipe having a grid embedded interior surface in FIG. 6; and
[0023] FIG. 11 is a perspective view of a conventional liquid heat
sink in accordance with the prior art.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0024] With reference to FIGS. 1 and 5, a liquid cooled heat sink
in accordance with the present invention comprises a thermal
conduction plate (10) and a liquid cooling module.
[0025] With reference to FIGS. 2 to 4, the thermal conduction plate
(10) may be rectangular and has a contact surface (11), a cooling
surface (12) and two side edges. The contact surface (11) contacts
multiple heat generating devices (50) shown as FIG. 4, such as a
central processing unit of a server system, power switches or the
like.
[0026] With further reference to FIG. 5, the liquid cooling module
is attached securely to the thermal conduction plate (10), may be
formed in the thermal conduction plate (10) or may be mounted
securely on the cooling surface (12) of the thermal conduction
plate (10). The liquid cooling module has a distribution tank (20,
101a, 102a), a collection tank (40, 101c, 102c) and a pipe assembly
(30, 101b, 102b).
[0027] The distribution tank (20, 101a, 102a) is disposed adjacent
to one of the side edges of the thermal conduction plate (10), may
be a parallelepiped and has at least one distribution inlet (21)
and multiple distribution outlets (22). The distribution tank (20,
101a, 102a) may be formed in or mounted on the thermal conduction
plate (10) adjacent to one of the side edges of the thermal
conduction plate (10).
[0028] The collection tank (40, 101c, 102c) is disposed adjacent to
one of the side edges of the thermal conduction plate (10), may be
rectangular and has multiple collection inlets (42) and at least
one collection outlet (41). The collection tank (40, 101c, 102c)
may be formed in or mounted on the thermal conduction plate (10)
adjacent to the other one of the side edges of the thermal
conduction plate (10).
[0029] The pipe assembly (30, 101b, 102b) has multiple pipes. The
pipes are separately formed in or mounted on the thermal conduction
plate (10) and of at least two different gauges and each pipe has a
pipe inlet (31) and a pipe outlet (32). With further reference to
FIGS. 6-10, the pipes may have different interior diameters to
define the at least two different gauges or may have different
morphology of interior surfaces of the pipes. For instance, the
pipes may have a smooth interior surface (301), a zigzag interior
surface (302), a ragged interior surface (303) or a grid embedded
interior surface (304) to form the different gauges.
[0030] A pipe assembly (30, 101b, 102b) having three pipes may have
two pipes having a same gauge and one that is different.
Alternatively, the pipes may each be formed to have non-identical
gauges. The pipe inlet (31) of each pipe is securely mounted with
one of the distribution outlets (22) and the pipe outlet (32) of
each pipe is securely mounted with one of the collection inlets
(42). Thus a passage of each pipe communicates with the
distribution tank (20, 101a, 102a) and the collection tank (40,
101c, 102c).
[0031] In a first embodiment shown as FIGS. 1-4 of the present
invention, the liquid cooling module is mounted securely on the
cooling surface (12). The pipes with different gauges are
separately mounted on the cooling surface (12). In the first
embodiment, longer pipes have larger gauges. The pipes may be
substantially U-shaped for mounting on the distribution tank (20)
and the collection tank (40).
[0032] In a second embodiment shown as FIG. 5, the liquid cooling
module is formed in the thermal conduction plate (10). For ease of
manufacturing, the thermal conduction plate (10) may have a first
plate (101) and a second plate (102). The first plate (101) has an
inner surface having a recessed distribution tank (101a), a
recessed collection tank (101c) and a recessed pipe assembly (101b)
corresponding respectively to the distribution tank (20),
collection tank (40) and multiple pipes (30). The recessed pipe
assembly (101b) has multiple recessed pipes, each recessed pipes
has two pipe ends respectively communicating with the recessed
distribution tank (101a) and the recessed collection tank (101c).
Accordingly, the second plate (102) is shaped corresponding to and
securely mounted with the first plate (101) and has an inner
surface. The inner surface of the second plate (102) is mounted
securely on the inner surface of the first plate (101) and has a
recessed distribution tank (102a), a recessed collection tank
(102c) and a recessed pipe assembly (102b) that respectively
correspond to and communicate with the distribution tank (101a),
the collection tank (101c) and the pipe assembly (101b) to from the
pipe assembly in the thermal conduction plate (10). When
assembling, the inner surfaces of the first and second plates (101,
102) are mounted securely, thereby the distribution tank (101a,
102a), the collection tank (101c, 102c) and the pipe assembly
(101b, 102b) are then formed in the thermal conduction plate (10).
Furthermore, different gauges in the second embodiment can be
formed by defining depths of the recessed pipes of the pipe
assembly (101b, 102b).
[0033] Because the pipes of the pipe assembly (30, 101b, 102b) may
have different gauges and are separately mounted on or formed in
the thermal conduction plate (10), the pipes are shorter and have
less complex curves than in prior art. Hence, stronger pumping
system requirements and uniformity problems in the conventional
liquid heat sink are resolved. Furthermore, a sum of the gauges of
the disclosed embodiments is increased over the prior art, a flow
rate is increased thereby the heat transformation efficiency is
also improved according to the following equation:
{dot over (Q)}=.rho.{dot over (v)}C.sub.p.DELTA.T
[0034] where,
[0035] {dot over (Q)} is derivative of heat by time;
[0036] C.sub.p is specific heat of coolant;
[0037] {dot over (v)} is flow rate;
[0038] .rho. is density of coolant; and
[0039] .DELTA.T is temperature difference.
[0040] As disclosed above, since the present invention has higher
flow rate, a larger {dot over (Q)} is derived due to a rise in
"{dot over (v)}".
[0041] In summary, the liquid cooled heat sink has advantages as
following:
[0042] 1. Because the pipe assembly (30, 101b, 102b) has multiple
pipes, the pipes in the present disclosure are then able to be
separately mounted uniformly on the thermal conduction plate (10)
without over coiled. Therefore, the coolant may smoothly flow in
the pipes even without a stronger pumping system.
[0043] 2. A higher cooling ability ({dot over (Q)}) is achieved
since a higher flow rate ({dot over (v)}) is achieved from an
increased sum of the cross-section areas of the pipes. Hence, the
present disclosure is perfectly suitable to be used for apparatuses
having a purity of heat generating devices (50) that are spread
allocated on the apparatuses.
[0044] 3. Although temperature difference of the coolant existed at
the pipe inlet (31) and pipe outlet (32) of a longer pipe, thereby
may reduce the cooling ability of the present disclosure. To
overcome this problem, the present disclosure increases a passage
cross-section of the longer pipe so as to increase flow rate
thereof. Hence, the temperature difference of the coolant at the
pipe inlet (31) and outlet (32) become non-obvious and an uniform
cooling ability is available.
[0045] Even though numerous characteristics and advantages of the
present invention have been set forth in the foregoing description,
together with details of the structure and function of the
invention, the disclosure is illustrative only. Changes may be made
in detail, especially in matters of shape, size and arrangement of
parts within the principles of the invention to the full extent
indicated by the broad general meaning of the terms in which the
appended claims are expressed.
* * * * *