Corrosion Study on Single-Phase Liquid Cooling Cold Plates with Inhibited Propylene Glycol/Water Coolant for Data Centers

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
David Shia ◽  
Jin Yang ◽  
Sean Sivapalan ◽  
Rithi Soeung ◽  
Christian Amoah-Kusi
Keyword(s):  
Propylene Glycol ◽  
Manufacturing Process ◽  
Single Phase ◽  
Data Centers ◽  
Galvanic Corrosion ◽  
Cold Plate ◽  
Liquid Cooling ◽  
Friction Stir ◽  
Corrosion Risk ◽  
Cold Plates

Abstract Single phase cold plate based liquid cooling attracts more and more attention to high-performance computing (HPC) and general computing data centers for thermal management of modern microprocessors due to liquid's inherent advantage of higher specific heat compared to air. Deionized (DI) water is usually used as coolant for liquid cooling in data centers. On the contrary, propylene glycol/water is recommended as coolant for one-phase cold plate liquid cooling in this study for following reasons. The inhibited propylene glycol-based fluids of 25+% vol. have the benefit of being biostatic and not requiring addition of biocides. They also offer freeze protection in the usage of data centers in cold climates. The cold plates made from copper is prone to oxide even under room temperature and the dissimilarity between brazing material and copper can also cause galvanic corrosion in the usage. In this paper, a study was carried out to investigate cold plate corrosion with inhibited propylene glycol/water using design of experiments (DOE) method. This study shows manufacturing process plays an important role on corrosion risk of copper based cold plates and the corrosion risk can be mitigated by enabling new manufacturing processes, including friction stir welding (FSW) and nickel plating to the inside surface of the cold plate in the manufacturing process.

Study on Copper Cold Plate Designs for Electronics Liquid Cooling System

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi. Feng ◽  
Y. Wang ◽  
C. Y. Huang
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Thermal Performance ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Pure Copper ◽  
Cold Plate ◽  
Performance Limits ◽  
Liquid Cooling ◽  
Cold Plates ◽  
Management Approaches ◽  
Liquid Cooling System

The increasing power consumption of microelectronic systems and the dense layout of semiconductor components leave very limited design spaces with tight constraints for the thermal solution. Conventional thermal management approaches, such as extrusion, fold-fin, and heat pipe heat sinks, are somehow reaching their performance limits, due to the geometry constraints. Currently, more studies have been carried out on the liquid cooling technologies, as the flexible tubing connection of liquid cooling system makes both the accommodation in constrained design space and the simultaneous cooling of multi heating sources feasible. To significantly improve the thermal performance of a liquid cooling system, heat exchangers with more liquid-side heat transfer area with acceptable flow pressure drop are expected. This paper focuses on the performance of seven designs of source heat exchanger (cold plate). The presented cold plates are all made in pure copper material using wire cutting, soldering, brazing, or sintering process. Enhanced heat transfer surfaces such as micro channel and cooper mesh are investigated. Detailed experiments have been conducted to understand the performance of these seven cooper cold plates. The same radiators, fan, and water pump were connected with each cooper cold plate to investigate the overall thermal performance of liquid cooling system. Water temperature readings at the inlets and outlets of radiators, pump, and colder plate have been taken to interpret the thermal resistance distribution along the cooling loop.

Thermal Analysis of Cold Plate for Direct Liquid Cooling of High Performance Servers

2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bharath Ramakrishnan ◽  
Yaser Hadad ◽  
Sami Alkharabsheh ◽  
Paul R. Chiarot ◽  
Bahgat Sammakia
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Heat Flux ◽  
Thermal Resistance ◽  
High Heat ◽  
High Heat Flux ◽  
Cold Plate ◽  
Liquid Cooling ◽  
Maximum Heat ◽  
Effective Heat ◽  
Cold Plates

Data center energy usage keeps growing every year and will continue to increase with rising demand for ecommerce, scientific research, social networking, and use of streaming video services. The miniaturization of microelectronic devices and an increasing demand for clock speed result in high heat flux systems. By adopting direct liquid cooling, the high heat flux and high power demands can be met, while the reliability of the electronic devices is greatly improved. Cold plates which are mounted directly on to the chips facilitate a lower thermal resistance path originating from the chip to the incoming coolant. An attempt was made in the current study to characterize a commercially available cold plate which uses warm water in carrying the heat away from the chip. A mock package mimicking a processor chip with an effective heat transfer area of 6.45 cm2 was developed for this study using a copper block heater arrangement. The thermo-hydraulic performance of the cold plates was investigated by conducting experiments at varying chip power, coolant flow rates, and coolant temperature. The pressure drop (ΔP) and the temperature rise (ΔT) across the cold plates were measured, and the results were presented as flow resistance and thermal resistance curves. A maximum heat flux of 31 W/cm2 was dissipated at a flow rate of 13 cm3/s. A resistance network model was used to calculate an effective heat transfer coefficient by revealing different elements contributing to the total resistance. The study extended to different coolant temperatures ranging from 25 °C to 45 °C addresses the effect of coolant viscosity on the overall performance of the cold plate, and the results were presented as coefficient of performance (COP) curves. A numerical model developed using 6SigmaET was validated against the experimental findings for the flow and thermal performance with minimal percentage difference.

New Thermal Management Systems for Data Centers

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayumi Ouchi ◽  
Yoshiyuki Abe ◽  
Masato Fukagaya ◽  
Takashi Kitagawa ◽  
Haruhiko Ohta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heat Exchanger ◽  
Single Phase ◽  
Data Centers ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Heat Pipes ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Liquid Cooling ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Cooling Jacket ◽  
Cooling Methods

Energy consumption in data centers has seen a drastic increase in recent years. In data centers, server racks are cooled down in an indirect way by air-conditioning systems installed to cool the entire server room. This air cooling method is inefficient as information technology (IT) equipment is insufficiently cooled down, whereas the room is overcooled. The development of countermeasures for heat generated by IT equipment is one of the urgent tasks to be accomplished. We, therefore, proposed new liquid cooling systems in which IT equipment is cooled down directly and exhaust heat is not radiated into the server room. Three cooling methods have been developed simultaneously. Two of them involve direct cooling; a cooling jacket is directly attached to the heat source (or CPU in this case) and a single-phase heat exchanger or a two-phase heat exchanger is used as the cooling jacket. The other method involves indirect cooling; heat generated by CPU is transported to the outside of the chassis through flat heat pipes and the condensation sections of the heat pipes are cooled down by coolant with liquid manifold. Verification tests have been conducted by using commercial server racks to which these cooling methods are applied while investigating five R&D components that constitute our liquid cooling systems: the single-phase heat exchanger, the two-phase heat exchanger, high performance flat heat pipes, nanofluid technology, and the plug-in connector. As a result, a 44–53% reduction in energy consumption of cooling facilities with the single-phase cooling system and a 42–50% reduction with the flat heat pipe cooling system were realized compared with conventional air cooling system.

Measurement of the Thermal Performance of a Custom-Build Single-Phase Immersion Cooled Server at Various High and Low Temperatures for Prolonged Time

2019 ◽  
Vol 142 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pratik V. Bansode ◽  
Jimil M. Shah ◽  
Gautam Gupta ◽  
Dereje Agonafer ◽  
Harsh Patel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Relative Humidity ◽  
Single Phase ◽  
Data Centers ◽  
Operating Cost ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Junction Temperature ◽  
Dielectric Fluid ◽  
Air Cooling ◽  
Liquid Cooling ◽  
Environmental Chamber

Abstract The next radical change in the thermal management of data centers is to shift from conventional cooling methods like air-cooling to direct liquid cooling to enable high thermal mass and corresponding superior cooling. There has been in the past few years a limited adoption of direct liquid cooling in data centers because of its simplicity and high heat dissipation capacity. Single-phase engineered fluid immersion cooling has several other benefits like better server performance, even temperature profile, and higher rack densities and the ability to cool all components in a server without the need for electrical isolation. The reliability aspect of such cooling technology has not been well addressed in the open literature. This paper presents the performance of a fully single-phase dielectric fluid immersed server over wide temperature ranges in an environmental chamber. The server was placed in an environmental chamber and applied extreme temperatures ranging from −20 °C to 10 °C at 100% relative humidity and from 20 to 55 °C at constant 50% relative humidity for extended durations. This work is a first attempt of measuring the performance of a server and other components like pump including flow rate drop, starting trouble, and other potential issues under extreme climatic conditions for a completely liquid-submerged system. Pumping power consumption is directly proportional to the operating cost of a data center. The experiment was carried out until the core temperature reached the maximum junction temperature. This experiment helps to determine the threshold capacity and the robustness of the server for its applications in extreme climatic conditions.

Thermodynamic Analysis of Full Liquid-Cooled Data Centers

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Bhalerao ◽  
A. P. Wemhoff
Keyword(s):  
Thermodynamic Analysis ◽  
Data Center ◽  
Thermodynamic Efficiency ◽  
Second Law ◽  
Heat Output ◽  
Cold Plate ◽  
Liquid Cooling ◽  
Second Law Analysis ◽  
Cold Plates ◽  
The Individual

One way to model the thermodynamic efficiency of a data center is to perform a second-law analysis using exergy calculations of the individual components. The in-house data center modeling tool Villanova Thermodynamic Analysis of Systems (VTAS) was applied to determine the effect of direct liquid cooling with cold plates on data center efficiency. The effectiveness of the cold plate as a function of the heat output of the servers was also examined. VTAS was used to study a configuration of two rows with eight racks each. Each rack was assumed to have twelve servers, each producing 200 W of heat. In addition to the cold plates and servers, this configuration also included a computer room air handling (CRAH) unit, a chiller, and a cooling tower. Preliminary results show that data center second-law efficiency increases as the cold plate removes more heat than the CRAH unit. Specifically, when using cold plates to remove all of the heat from the servers, the overall data center exergy destruction was reduced by over 30% compared to a configuration with only a CRAH unit and between 12–18% compared to a configuration with hybrid liquid-air technologies, thus showing that configurations with direct liquid cooling are thermodynamically more favorable. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the cold plate increases as the heat output of each server increases, suggesting that cold plates are most effective when removing a greater amount of heat.

Two-Phase Liquid Cooling for Thermal Management of IGBT Power Electronic Module

2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng Wang ◽  
Patrick McCluskey ◽  
Avram Bar-Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Power Electronics ◽  
Thermal Management ◽  
Single Phase ◽  
Heat Dissipation ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
System Level ◽  
Cooling Power ◽  
Cold Plate ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Cold Plates

Recent trends including rapid increases in the power ratings and continued miniaturization of semiconductor devices have pushed the heat dissipation of power electronics well beyond the range of conventional thermal management solutions, making control of device temperature a critical issue in the thermal packaging of power electronics. Although evaporative cooling is capable of removing very high heat fluxes, two-phase cold plates have received little attention for cooling power electronics modules. In this work, device-level analytical modeling and system-level thermal simulation are used to examine and compare single-phase and two-phase cold plates for a specified inverter module, consisting of 12 pairs of silicon insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) devices and diodes. For the conditions studied, an R134a-cooled, two-phase cold plate is found to substantially reduce the maximum IGBT temperature and spatial temperature variation, as well as reduce the pumping power and flow rate, in comparison to a conventional single-phase water-cooled cold plate. These results suggest that two-phase cold plates can be used to substantially improve the performance, reliability, and conversion efficiency of power electronics systems.

scholarly journals Thermal Analysis of Cold Plate with Different Configurations for Thermal Management of a Lithium-Ion Battery

Batteries ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Seyed Saeed Madani ◽  
Erik Schaltz ◽  
Søren Knudsen Kær
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Analysis ◽  
Temperature Distribution ◽  
Lithium Ion Battery ◽  
Thermal Management ◽  
Electric Vehicles ◽  
Heat Dissipation ◽  
Lithium Ion ◽  
Cold Plate ◽  
Liquid Cooling ◽  
Cooling Design

Thermal analysis and thermal management of lithium-ion batteries for utilization in electric vehicles is vital. In order to investigate the thermal behavior of a lithium-ion battery, a liquid cooling design is demonstrated in this research. The influence of cooling direction and conduit distribution on the thermal performance of the lithium-ion battery is analyzed. The outcomes exhibit that the appropriate flow rate for heat dissipation is dependent on different configurations for cold plate. The acceptable heat dissipation condition could be acquired by adding more cooling conduits. Moreover, it was distinguished that satisfactory cooling direction could efficiently enhance the homogeneity of temperature distribution of the lithium-ion battery.

Study of the Key Issues of Friction Stir Welding of Titanium Alloy

2010 ◽  
Vol 638-642 ◽  
pp. 1185-1190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Jie Liu ◽  
Li Zhou ◽  
Yong Xian Huang ◽  
Qi Wei Liu
Keyword(s):  
Titanium Alloy ◽  
Friction Stir Welding ◽  
Melting Point ◽  
Titanium Alloys ◽  
Welding Process ◽  
High Strength ◽  
Liquid Cooling ◽  
Friction Stir ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Aluminum And Magnesium Alloys

As a new solid-state welding process, friction stir welding (FSW) has been successfully used for joining low melting point materials such as aluminum and magnesium alloys, but the FSW of high melting point materials such as steels and titanium alloys is still difficult to carry out because of their strict requirements for the FSW tool. Especially for the FSW of titanium alloys, some key technological issues need to solve further. In order to accomplish the FSW of titanium alloys, a specially designed tool system was made. The system was composed of W-Re pin tool, liquid cooling holder and shielding gas shroud. Prior to FSW, the Ti-6Al-4V alloy plates were thermo-hydrogen processed to reduce the deformation resistance and tool wear during the FSW. Based on this, the thermo-hydrogen processed Ti-6Al-4V alloy with different hydrogen content was friction stir welded, and the microstructural characterizations and mechanical properties of the joints were studied. Experimental results showed that the designed tool system can fulfill the requirements of the FSW of titanium alloys, and excellent weld formation and high-strength joint have been obtained from the titanium alloy plates.

Characterization of an Isolated Hybrid Cooled Server With Failure Scenarios Using Warm Water Cooling

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uschas Chowdhury ◽  
Manasa Sahini ◽  
Ashwin Siddarth ◽  
Dereje Agonafer ◽  
Steve Branton
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Data Centers ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Warm Water ◽  
Alternative Methods ◽  
Inlet Temperature ◽  
Cooling Efficiency ◽  
Water Cooling ◽  
Liquid Cooling ◽  
Total Energy Consumption

Modern day data centers are operated at high power for increased power density, maintenance, and cooling which covers almost 2 percent (70 billion kilowatt-hours) of the total energy consumption in the US. IT components and cooling system occupy the major portion of this energy consumption. Although data centers are designed to perform efficiently, cooling the high-density components is still a challenge. So, alternative methods to improve the cooling efficiency has become the drive to reduce the cooling cost. As liquid cooling is more efficient for high specific heat capacity, density, and thermal conductivity, hybrid cooling can offer the advantage of liquid cooling of high heat generating components in the traditional air-cooled servers. In this experiment, a 1U server is equipped with cold plate to cool the CPUs while the rest of the components are cooled by fans. In this study, predictive fan and pump failure analysis are performed which also helps to explore the options for redundancy and to reduce the cooling cost by improving cooling efficiency. Redundancy requires the knowledge of planned and unplanned system failures. As the main heat generating components are cooled by liquid, warm water cooling can be employed to observe the effects of raised inlet conditions in a hybrid cooled server with failure scenarios. The ASHRAE guidance class W4 for liquid cooling is chosen for our experiment to operate in a range from 25°C – 45°C. The experiments are conducted separately for the pump and fan failure scenarios. Computational load of idle, 10%, 30%, 50%, 70% and 98% are applied while powering only one pump and the miniature dry cooler fans are controlled externally to maintain constant inlet temperature of the coolant. As the rest of components such as DIMMs & PCH are cooled by air, maximum utilization for memory is applied while reducing the number fans in each case for fan failure scenario. The components temperatures and power consumption are recorded in each case for performance analysis.

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