Numerical and Experimental Study of a Novel Additively Manufactured Metal-Polymer Composite Heat-Exchanger for Liquid Cooling Electronics

Abstract

In order to meet increasing power-dissipation requirements of the electronics industry, compact, low-cost, and lightweight heat exchangers (HXs) are desired. With proper design, materials, and manufacture, polymer composite heat exchangers could meet these requirements. This paper presents a novel crossflow air-to-water, low-cost, and lightweight metal-polymer composite HX. This HX, which is entirely additively manufactured, utilizes a novel cross-media approach that provides direct heat exchange between air and liquid sides by using connecting fins. A robust numerical model was developed, which includes the dimensional effects of additive manufacturing. The study consists of a simplified 3D CFD model based on ellipsoidal-shaped staggered tube banks for the laminar range. It then uses an analytical approach to compute entire HX performance. The model is validated experimentally within 8% for thermal performance, 12% for air-side impedance, and 18% for water-side impedance. Finally, HX is compared with a conventional CPU radiator and performs within 10% of the conventional unit for reasonable flow rates and pressure-drop ranges. Moreover, HX also provides added design and cost advantages over the conventional unit, which makes the HX a potential candidate for electronic cooling applications.

A 1D Reduced-Order Model (ROM) for a Novel Latent Thermal Energy Storage System

“…The heat then continuously conducts through the wires axially, up to t wall length, until it reaches the PCM side. In this so-called cross-media approach, small-diameter continuous metal wires of high thermal conductivity, such as copper, are laid across all the fluid and PCM channels, providing a direct heat transfer route between the hot fluid and the PCM (see Figure 1c,e) [10][11][12][13][14]. Since the heat transfer route is independent of the thermal conductivity of the polymer, the resulting TES system is a low-resistance unit.…”

“…Here, h f luid is computed using CFD by considering flow parameters including Re number, flow properties including Pr number, and geometrical tube-bank parameters including S T D and S L D . Similarly, η f luid is calculated using h f luid , wire properties including k wire and geometrical parameters including W f luid and D. The authors previously studied and discussed this methodology as detailed in references [11,14]. Since the flow is assumed to be fully developed, h f luid is constant for all ith wires.…”

“…The present study overcomes these challenges by utilizing a low-cost, metal-polymer composite heat exchanger (HX), consisting of metal wires embedded in the polymer structure and integrated with a PCM to yield a compact, durable, and lightweight storage device. The proposed technology leverages the results from the authors' past work on a patented cross-media approach capable of producing entirely additively manufactured, low-cost and lightweight metal-polymer composite heat exchangers [10][11][12][13][14]. The TES units based on these HXs utilize high thermal-conductivity continuous metal wires that act as fins in a tube-bank geometry, separated by lightweight and low-cost alternate polymer channels.…”

An Iterative Algorithm for the Estimation of Thermal Boundary Conditions Varying in Both Time and Space

“…Its experimental validation is also reported. Paper [3] presents a novel crossflow airto-water heat exchange, its experimental testing, and modelling. A thermal and strength analysis of the power boiler superheater is shown in [4].…”

“…(3,1), (62, 1), and (191, 1). A reduction in the time step to Δt = 10 s involved a slight difference in the temperature transients.…”