Membrane-Based Two Phase Heat Sinks for High Heat Flux Electronics and Lasers

Abstract

Thermal management is the current bottleneck in advancement of high-power integrated circuits (ICs), and phase change heat sinks are a promising solution. With a unique structural configuration consisting of a membrane positioned above the heater surface, membrane-based heat sinks (MHS) have thus far attained heat fluxes of up to 2 kW/cm 2 and HTC of up to 1.8 MW/m 2 K using water as the working fluid. This work reports the latest progress and performance evaluation of MHS for high flux thermal management. MHS is implemented in conjunction with a low surface tension liquid to rapidly expel bubbles from the heated surface and reach a CHF of 340 W/cm 2 and a HTC of 120 kW/m 2 K. A parametric comparison shows that thermal efficiency, defined as the ratio of cooling capacity and pumping power consumption, of the prototypical devices exceed values reported hitherto in literature by more than two orders of magnitude. Our results indicate that coupled with surfaces of higher thermal conductivity and membranes of higher permeability, MHS devices could be a promising solution to thermal management needs of high-power electronics and lasers.

Data center energy efficiency enhancement using a two-phase heat sink with ultra-high heat transfer coefficient

“…5 denotes the maximum heat flux limit for a given device pressure based on membrane permeability. Consistent with results obtained at atmospheric pressure [37,38,40], above a certain pressure (∼2 kPa), CHF is not limited by the membrane permeability, but by surface properties. It can also be inferred from fig.…”

“…This method of manipulating vapor discharge is shown to enhance multiple performance characteristics during boiling. For example, in addition to dissipating heat fluxes greater than one order of magnitude [37,38] above the Kutateladze [39] and Zuber [25] limit (119 W/cm 2 for a copper surface), rapid expulsion of vapor from the liquid pool greatly lowers two-phase pressure drop relative to conventional heat sinks [40].…”