U.S. patent application number 13/908164 was filed with the patent office on 2014-12-04 for injection plate for microstructure water cooling units for an electrical or electronic component.
The applicant listed for this patent is Nathanael Draht. Invention is credited to Nathanael Draht.
Application Number | 20140352937 13/908164 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 51983809 |
Filed Date | 2014-12-04 |
United States Patent
Application |
20140352937 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Draht; Nathanael |
December 4, 2014 |
Injection plate for microstructure water cooling units for an
electrical or electronic component
Abstract
Injection plate for microstructure water cooling units for an
electrical or electronic component which improves the cooling power
of a microstructure water cooler by using recirculation channels
for the removal of the coolant, so that the height of the fins of
the cooling channels can be reduced in comparison to a state of the
art injections plates without water recirculation technology.
Inventors: |
Draht; Nathanael;
(US) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
Draht; Nathanael |
|
|
US |
|
|
Family ID: |
51983809 |
Appl. No.: |
13/908164 |
Filed: |
June 3, 2013 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
165/168 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H01L 2924/00 20130101;
G06F 1/20 20130101; H01L 2924/0002 20130101; H01L 2924/0002
20130101; H01L 23/473 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
165/168 |
International
Class: |
F28F 3/12 20060101
F28F003/12 |
Claims
1. Injection plate for microstructure water cooling units for an
electrical or electronic component which improves the cooling power
of a microstructure water cooler so that the height of the fins of
the cooling channels can be reduced in comparison to a state of the
art injections plates without water recirculation technology which
has recirculation channels at the bottom for the removal of the
coolant whose water return channels are not parallel to the
normally symmetrically build ground structure made of oblique or
curved water return passages that run transversely to the floor
structure of the microstructure cooler, so that in addition to the
removal of the cooling medium micro turbulence are caused, that
increase the cooling performance of the microstructure cooler who
is placed centered above the heat dissipating part of the
microstructure cooler who has a water inlet part in the middle for
the incoming fluid who can be mounted in a microstructure cooler as
a separate part (injection plate)
2. Injection plate with water return channels as described in claim
1 characterized in that it can be used as replacement part for
existing microstructure coolers.
3. Injection plate with water return channels as described in
claims 1 to 2 characterized in that it can be designed in different
versions depending on the required cooling capacity--flow rate
gradient or depending on the size of the heat transferor
component.
4. Injection plate with water return channels as described in
claims 1 to 3 characterized in that it may be implemented alongside
each other as a single component and the insert in the top of the
microstructure cooler.
Description
field of the invention
[0001] This invention relates to a cooler for electrical or
electronic components, in detail to fluid coolers for PC components
like processors, graphics chips, memory units, voltage converters,
hard drives and other electrical or electronic components, that
dissipate heat, that are known for example from the patent
DE102008058032.5 U.S. Pat. No. 6,105,373 and DE102004018144B4
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART OF TECHNIQUE
[0002] From DE102004018144B4 it is known, for example, that in
modern computers, the electronic components of graphics cards and
processors, the so-called CPUs, are inherently subject to high
thermal loads which occur during their operation. Due to the
ever-narrowing circuit structures and the increasing performance of
these processors they heavily heat up during operation. To ensure a
high and uniform computer power and to protect the processor from
thermal damage, all of these were actively cooled. A conventional
cooling air provides a cooler in form of a front fan that supplies
the electronic device regulated or unregulated with cooling air.
The heated air is discharged to the environment in general.
[0003] In high-performance computers this type of cooling has
limitations. Particularly in large computer systems is the heating
of the rooms where computers are set up a problem which is
encountered with the use of air conditioners with high energy
costs.
[0004] As an alternative to pure air cooling liquid cooler for
electronic processors are available amplified, which comprise a
bottom plate, usually made of copper, on which one on side the
processor is arranged, while the other side is subjected to a
stream of cooling water. This cooling water is, for example,
provided through an injection plate with feed and discharge
connections, with which the bottom plate is in contact.
[0005] Reference may be made here by way of example on coolers,
which are known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,105,373, U.S. Pat. No.
5,239,443 and water. Thus, the one described in U.S. Pat. No.
6,105,373 thermoelectric cooler has a bottom plate and a
multi-piece nozzle plate, wherein at the first side of the bottom
plate an electronic component that needs to be cooled can be
mounted and opposite the injection plate can be attached. On the
injection plate, a feed port and a discharge port for a liquid
cooling medium are included. For the distribution of the cooling
medium there is a chamber formed in the injection plate, which is
connected to the feed port and to the outlet holes or ejection
nozzles. The outlet openings of the ejection nozzles or discharge
orifices are directed towards the electronic component facing away
from the side of the bottom plate, so that it is actively cooled by
the cooling medium. The discharge of the heated cooling medium from
the cooling space is formed between the outside of the chamber and
the electronic component facing away from the side of the base
plate.
[0006] Although this liquid-cooled cooling device has significant
advantages relative to air-cooled cooling devices for an electronic
component, it can, as regards the cooling effect and the
replaceability, be further improved. It should be referred to the
microstructure cooler DE102008058032.5, which preferably allows a
further increase due to the new etching technology through the
production of very fine structures. The base plates that are
manufactured from etching process require very thin (for example 1
mm) materials, so that they can be screwed only with expensive
thread insert with the top. Therefore, current microstructure
cooler again are manufactured by milling and possibly additionally
provided with a top and an injection plate. The bottom of an so
produced cooler is between 3 and 5 mm thick and usually must be
processed very complicated to achieve inside a remaining thickness
of preferably <0.5 mm and a fin height of 2 to 3 mm.
[0007] Microstructure coolers of the current state of the art are
challenged to allow a sufficiently high flow and the greatest
possible cooling capacity. To allow a large flow rate, the cooling
channels must have a certain height in the soil, for example, 4 mm,
and a corresponding width, for example 1 mm, so that the
microstructure cooler is not a flow brake for the water circuit. In
order to achieve the greatest possible cooling power, the cooling
channels may be as thin as possible, for example <0.5 mm, and
the height as low as possible, such as <2 mm, so that the
coolant can absorb the heat directly from the heat transferor
point. However, so designed coolers have a very high resistance to
flow, so that thus constructed cooler with conventional pumps used
in computer water cooling systems cannot be carried out
effectively. The currently in such coolers used injection plates
are for the central water supply only, and do not include water
recirculation technology.
[0008] Against this background, the present invention seeks to
solve the problem of deteriorating flow with optimized cooling
channel structure.
[0009] The solution to this problem results from the features of
the main claim, while advantageous embodiments and further
developments of the invention are noted in the dependent
claims.
[0010] The invention is based on the discovery that the water flow
in the bottom of a micro-structure cooler cannot be improved since
any flow optimization in the form of an increase or enlargement of
the cooling channels leads to an expense of cooling capacity.
Therefore, the micro channel technology known from patent
DE102008058032.5 has been advanced and applied to the current
manufacturing techniques for microstructure coolers, so that the
cooling capacity of a bottom plate produced by conventional milling
techniques with very fine and aligned parallel and flat cooling
channels, is increased in both the flow and the cooling capacity by
an injection plate with water recirculation channels
[0011] The performance increase is based partly on an increase of
the flow in general. It is known that the performance of
micro-structure cooler can be increased by simply increasing the
pump power in the cooling circuit. The injection plate with water
recirculation technology allows with a constant pump power an
increase in the flow and thus leads to an increase in performance.
On the other hand the increase of performance is based on the
recirculation channels running not parallel to the cooling channel
structure and so cause additional micro turbulences in the fin
structure of the bottom plate which lead to local increase in the
flow rate, which improves the heat absorption rate of the cooling
medium.
[0012] Many current models are already equipped with an injection
plate. However, this injection plate controls only the central
water inlet and contains no water recirculation technology. It is
possible to upgrade this microstructure cooler by replacing the
current injection layer by an intermediate layer with water
recirculation technology, so that for the same floor structure only
by the increased water flow and the micro-turbulence, the cooling
capacity of existing models is increased.
[0013] For the development of new models, it is possible that the
normally conventional fin height of 2 to 3 mm for example, is
reduced to 1.0 to 1.2 mm, so that in combination with the injection
plate with water recirculation technology a constant or increased
cooling power and flow rate is achieved along with substantially
reduced manufacturing costs for the base plate. The manufacturing
costs of a base plate will be the lower, the lower the fin height
is, since the cooling channels are usually produced by milling
cutter discs and with increasing fin height/channel depth the
milling cutter disc will be damaged more frequently, due to bigger
milling waste, the processing time is to be long, and in addition
it often leads to visual defects (shafts, bending, breaks) in the
fin structure.
[0014] The injection plate with recirculation technology will be,
same as the normal injection plate be commonly sealed against the
top with an O-ring. However, the sealing may also take place via an
adhesive or other suitable sealing means.
[0015] Divergent from applying the water recirculation technology
in an injection plate it is also possible to include the technology
directly in the top of a microstructure cooler.
[0016] Depending on the application and system conditions such as
the existing pump performance, parallel operation of several
coolers (for example for multi-processor systems) or the cooling of
other components such as graphics chips, hard drives, memory chips
and other heat dissipating components, the recirculation channel
structure can be customized.
SUMMARY
[0017] The invention concerns an injection plate for microstructure
water cooling units for an electrical or electronic component
[0018] which allows the central water supply [0019] which has
attached recirculation channels on the lower side, which are not
parallel to a symmetrical parallel fins or channel structure [0020]
which allows a flow increase [0021] which provides additional
turbulence in the base plate, leading to a local increase of the
flow speed [0022] which improves the heat transfer from the base
plate to the cooling medium [0023] which improves the existing
coolers in the cooling capacity and the flow rate [0024] which
enables the reduction of the fin height at constant or increased
cooling power and flow rate for new coolers with which a fluid
operated cooler for electrical or electronic components can be
improved in terms of the cooling capacity and the flow rate by
installing an injection plate with recirculation technology above
the base plate
EMBODIMENT
[0025] An exemplary embodiment is described with reference to the
accompanying figures. In the drawings:
[0026] FIG. 1--Prior art. The CPU cooler pictured here shows the
typical current CPU cooler art. The cooling medium is distributed
through an inlet (1) into a prechamber (2), and from there through
the injection plate (3) concentrically with one or two slits (4) of
the fin structure/cooling channels (5) directed to the base plate
(6) to escape from there through the cooling channels (5) outwardly
and thereby absorb the heat from the heat source (7). The cooling
medium is then collected and discharged via outlet (8).
[0027] FIG. 2--New injection plate with water recirculation
technology. The pictured injection plate (9), has in addition to
the already known centric injection function (10) the new function
of water recirculation. The water return channels (11) extending
not parallel to the fin structure (5) of the bottom plate (6) but
also back and forth, thus allowing additional turbulence that
acceleration of the flow rate of the cooling medium, so that the
heat absorption from the base plate (6) is improved.
[0028] FIG. 3--Different versions of the new injection plate with
water recirculation technology. Depending on the application,
different structures of the water recirculation channels may make
sense. This is particularly dependent of the size of the
heat-emitting device (7) of the particular application (for example
CPU, GPU, RAM or memory cooler) of the fin height/channel depth,
the remaining thickness used, the possibility of water transported
away and possible different heat spots on the heat-emitting
components.
[0029] FIG. 4--Sectional view of a CPU cooler with the injection
plate with water recirculation technology and reduced fin height
(15) (compared to the prior art (5)). The cooling medium is
distributed through an inlet (12) in a pre-chamber (13), and from
there through the injection region (14) of the injection plate (20)
centered on the fin structure/cooling channels (15) to the bottom
plate (16) in order to be deflected from the cooling channels (15)
to the outside. The cooling medium may then escape into the
recirculation channels (17) and flow above the finns (15). Thereby
the coolant sweeps above the fins and causes flow turbulence by
crossing the flow of the outwardly directed cooling channels, which
locally increase the flow velocity and thus improves the heat
transfer from the fins to the cooling medium. The cooling medium is
then collected outside (18) and discharged via outlet (19).
* * * * *