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Abstract

In this paper, based on the Li-Peterson pumping consumption-thermal resistance optimization model, a single-phase structure-optimized large-scale microchannel heat sink with each channel having 0.2 mm width and 0.8 mm height for extremely high heat flux cooling was proposed and investigated. Employing deionized water as coolant, two different heat source areas were designed and the results were compared under different pumping power from 0.1 W to 6.5 W. The experimental and simulation results indicates that the proposed copper-based microchannel thermal management system can dissipate heat flux of 1000 W/cm2 over 1cm2 and 500 W/cm2 over 5cm2, respectively, adding critical data support to the database of single-phase microchannel heat sink with heat removal capacity exceeding 1000 W/cm2. Moreover, the possible minimum thermal resistance over a broad pumping power range of 0.1 W to 6.5 W was explored. Extremely low thermal resistance of 0.065 K/W and 0.019 K/W were obtained for these two heating area scenarios. Overall, the proposed copper-based optimized microchannel heat sink is an ideal solution to cool high heat flux devices.

Introduction

The heat fuxes of devices such as high-performance computer chips, lasers and nuclear reactor are rapidly increasing, and the problem of heat accumulation and overheating is getting deteriorate [1]. In recent decades, the heat fux of the chip has reached 500 W/cm2 in the feld of Micro-ElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS), and the local hot spot can exceed 1000 W/cm2 [2–۵]. For instance, the thermal fux of the next generation of IGBT modules will gradually increase from 100 W/cm2 to 500 W/cm2 [6]. For high-power laser devices, each diode laser needs to dissipate 500 W/cm2 of heat fux while keeping the operating temperature as low as possible [7]. In the nuclear power engineering, the heat fux generated by components included in fusion reactors and defense applications can be up to 104 W/cm2 [8].

Generally, the operating temperature of electronic devices should be less than 85 °C, and the reliability of products will be decreased by 50% if over-heated temperature exceeding 10 °C [9–۱۱]. Since the demand of miniaturized design also limits the heat dissipation space, the uneven internal temperature distribution and poor heat dissipation have a series of negative efects, which will ultimately afect the performance and reliability of electronic devices. Therefore, reasonable thermal management is critical to electronic products [12, 13].

Current cooling technologies mainly include air cooling, liquid cooling, heat pipe, micro structure and spray cooling. As proposed by previous works, the traditional cooling method has relatively limited heat dissipation capacity, while the microchannel liquid cooling can handle a heat dissipation load of more than 1000 W/cm2 [14–۱۶], which is expected to meet the urgently demand for high heat fux cooling in the near future.