Electronics Cooling Magazine - Focused on Thermal Management, TIMs, Fans, Heat Sinks, CFD Software, LEDs/Lighting » Liquid Cooling

Coolers Utilize Aerospace Fluid-Bearing Technology

Sarah Long — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:40:54 +0000

Inspired by expertise from the Aerospace Industry, Jaro’s new MR-16 LED coolers optimize longevity and temperature with a highly-efficient fluid-bearing structure. At speeds of up to 4200RPM±15%, these very quiet DC coolers provide a chilly, yet quiet air-flow of 1.850CFM (min.: 1.573 CFM). Specifically designed for LED cooling applications, these coolers are sized at 30mm x30mm x 7mm and operate from -20°C TO +90°C.

Learn more from Jaro.

New Liquid-Cooled LED as Bright as 100W Bulb

Sarah Long — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:33:24 +0000

SWITCH Lighting’s™ SWITCH bulbs have a ring of metal prongs, each with a computer chip on it to emit light, which is immersed in liquid that fills each bulb. The liquid cools the chips while acting as a lens to magnify light.

SWITCH bulbs use 80 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbs and last for about 25,000 hours no matter often you switch them on or off.

Learn more from SWITCH.

GM to Stop Chevy Volt Battery Coolant Fires

Sarah Long — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:08:21 +0000

General Motors is going to modify its Chevrolet Volt plug-in car to eliminate the possibility that its batteries can catch on fire hours or days after a serious side-impact crash.

It turns out that battery coolant could leak on an electronic board, causing the fire. The leaks were discovered in tests in which a Volt was rotated until it was inverted. Only a small amount of coolant was involved.

To fix it, GM will modify the car to strengthen the protection around the battery. It will only add a few pounds.

Learn more from USA Today.

Dean Receives the Society of Women Engineers’ Highest Honor

Sarah Long — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:15:09 +0000

Professor Cristina Amon, dean of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, has received the 2011 Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award, the highest award given by the Society, for her outstanding contributions to the field of engineering over more than 20 years.

Dr. Amon is known for her work in fluid mechanics, heat transfer and engineering education.

Prior to joining U of T in 2006 as dean and Alumni Chair Professor in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Amon was the Raymond J. Lane Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research has advanced the engineering foundation of heat transfer enhancement by flow destabilization, nano-scale thermal transport in semi-conductors, and hemodynamics mass transport in biological systems, including aortic aneurysms and intravenous blood oxygenators. She has made pioneering contributions to concurrent thermal designs, innovation in electronics cooling and transient thermal management of wearable computers.

ElectronicsCooling December 2011 Issue

Sarah Long — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:33:16 +0000

Don’t miss out on the December 2011 issue of ElectronicsCooling, which includes feature articles on data center design, electro-thermal simulation of power, energy reduction and performance maximization as well as technical briefs.

If you would like to receive your free copy of ElectronicsCooling click here to subscribe.

Download the December 2011 issue here.

Cooling Technology Utilizes a CPU’s Waste Heat

Sarah Long — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:17:50 +0000

Fujitsu Laboratories Limited has developed cooling technology that employs waste heat generated by CPUs to produce chilled water that can be used to cool server rooms.

Fujitsu Laboratories has developed a technology that can chill water from relatively low-temperature sources that have not been usable in the past. At 55°C, water produced from water-cooled type CPUs is of a relatively low temperature, which fluctuates depending on load. However, it is possible to continuously produce chilled water even from this waste water.

This technology offers the ability to use a CPU’s waste heat to cool a datacenter and could save about 20% of the power used to air condition datacenters, which accounts for approximately 40% of all power used by datacenters. For a single server rack, which consumes up to 12,000 kWh per year, this is equivalent to the volume of CO2 cut by 360 cedar trees.

Learn more from Fujitsu.

Electrical Insulation Systems Standard

Sarah Long — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:49:24 +0000

IEC/TS 62332-1:2011(E) is applicable to EIS containing solid and liquid components where the thermal stress is the dominant ageing factor, without restriction to voltage class. This part specifies a dual-temperature test procedure for the thermal evaluation and qualification of electrical insulation systems (EIS). The following significant technical changes with respect to the previous edition have been made – Modifications have been made based on an extensive test series conducted using this methodology given in the first edition. This included updating expected times and tempertatures to use in order to obtain useful results, as well as making the range of equipment covered broader. The method can now cover electrotechnical devices using different sealing systems, as well as devices using enamel covered wires.

Preview the standard.

Yale Engineers Invent Magnetic Fluid Pump with No Moving Parts

Sarah Long — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:41:26 +0000

In a study published today in Physical Review B, Yale electrical engineering professor Hur Koser and colleagues from the University of Georgia and Massachusetts Institute of Technology demonstrate for the first time an approach that allows ferrofluids to be pumped by magnetic fields alone.

Their approach could lead to highly compact, integrated, quiet, and efficient liquid cooling schemes for portable, high-performance consumer electronics. For instance, ferrofluid cooling would eliminate the need for fans and heat plumbing inside computers, enabling further miniaturization.

Developed in the 1960s by NASA scientists seeking a non-mechanical method for moving liquid fuels in outer space, ferrofluids are made up of magnetic nanoparticles suspended in liquids such as oil, water, or alcohol.

The ferrohydrodynamic pump method works when electrodes wound around a pipe force magnetic nanoparticles within the ferrofluids to rotate at varying speeds. Those particles closest to the electrodes spin faster, and it is this spatial variation in rotation speed that propels the ferrofluid forward.

Learn more from Yale.

Rack-Ready Solution for Cooling Wind Turbine Systems

Sarah Long — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:11:34 +0000

Parker Hannifin Corporation’s new precision cooled rack-ready solution for cooling critical wind turbine systems features Parker’s proven and patented two-phase evaporative cooling technology, which uses non-corrosive, non-conductive, vaporizable dielectric fluid (VDF), to cool hot surfaces on contact. Parker’s precision-cooled rack-ready solution can be used to cool critical wind turbine systems, including power conversion electronics, the transformer/generator and the gear box, and provides an efficient solution in a smaller, lighter footprint than racks using alternative thermal management such as air and water, while enabling a higher density of electronics in the same space.

The Search for Green Air-Conditioning

Sarah Long — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 17:39:08 +0000

With the world’s population fast approaching 7 billion, how do we meet the growing demand for energy in a responsible, equitable, and sustainable way? It’s a question National Geographic, in partnership with Shell, is asking in its three-year initiative, The Great Energy Challenge, which is designed to shed light on the breadth and depth of the current energy situation. Recent stories published as part of the series explore the search for green air-conditioning, including a profile of Thermax of Pune, India, which markets absorption chilling as one of its “sustainable solutions” for today’s environmental concerns. Like standard air conditioners, absorption chillers, based on a technology that has been in commercial use since the 1920s, rely on a refrigerant with a low boiling point. When the refrigerant evaporates, it removes heat from the air. Standard air conditioners then change the refrigerant gas back to liquid using an electric compressor. But absorption chillers rely on thermal compression to restart the cycle; they need only heat—no moving parts—to drive the operation.

Companies Sign Agreement for Joint Strike Fighter Enclosures

Sarah Long — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 18:06:41 +0000

Harris Corporation has signed a long term agreement with TAE for the manufacture and supply of advanced liquid cooled electronics enclosures for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The key to the deal was TAE’s Aluminium Vacuum Brazing technology.

TAE is the first Australian company to have successfully developed the Aluminium Vacuum Brazing technology and one of only a small number world-wide to have the capability. One of the attractions to manufacturers is the one-stop-shop capability that TAE offers, with its associated processes (chromate conversion, painting, heat treatment), CNC machining and flow and pressure testing to complement the AVB process. TAE is also able to provide design and prototyping support to customers wishing to develop new products using this sort of technology.

Learn more from TAE.

Company Acquires Designer and Manufacturer of Chillers and Cooling Systems

Sarah Long — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:07:59 +0000

Lytron has acquired Lydall Industrial Thermal Solutions, Inc (“Affinity”). Affinity is a designer and manufacturer of high performance industrial chillers and liquid-to-liquid cooling systems for the semiconductor, laser and industrial markets.

Lytron plans to maintain Affinity’s headquarters and manufacturing facility in Ossipee, N.H., as well as the Affinity sales and service centers located around the world.

Learn more from Lytron.

BMW Liquid Cooled Commuter Scooter

Sarah Long — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:00:31 +0000

BMW Motorrad’s new scooter has more than a 60-mile range and a recharge time of around three hours. The bike’s specs are possible thanks to an innovative design that uses the aluminum battery casing in lieu of a main frame. While the electric motor and electronics are liquid cooled, the battery itself is air cooled in order to save space.

Learn more from Wired.

PC Overclocking and Aftermarket Modding. Part 1 – When Colour Matters.

Robin Bornoff — Tue, 24 May 2011 08:44:25 +0000

Automotive aftermarket modification has both mass appeal and a multi-million dollar turnover. Neon underbody lighting, enhanced radiator systems, aero-dynamic side skirts and hood scoops are but some of the ways in which you can part with your hard earned cash for that unbeatable feeling of looking sideways at the person in the car next to you as you narrow your eyes and nod your head slowly, marvelling at the beauty of your own carriage compared to that of your hapless neighbour. “Awwwwwwwwww yeehhhhhhh”. “O dear” was the most I could muster when my eldest got excited about the colour of the lights inside a aftermarket desktop PC chassis he had his eye on.

I took my two eldest boys to the NEC in Birmingham for ‘Gadget Show Live’ recently where there were halls and halls of vendors showing all types of electronic gizmos. From an audio shower (you stood under an innovative metal square plate acting as a speaker, where it played the sound of a shower?!) to a kettle with a simple hand pump so that you could control exactly how much water you needed to boil (bought as a present for the wife; note to other men: maybe you could do better than buy women kitchen appliances as presents, apparently I could have). Most fun though were the PC and gaming areas.

Thermal design of PCs have come on a long way since the days of figuring out where to put the vents in the chassis. FloTHERM’s thermal simulation capability has come a long way as well, keeping track of the ever changing ways in which heat can be removed effectively from an electronics system so as to control temperature rises within it. From TECs and fan sinks to closed loop liquid cooling systems, the insides of home desktop PC systems now look like the illicit offspring of a car engine bay and Optimus Prime.

Classical methods of enhanced heat removal from a powerful CPU or GPU involve the use of a heatsink, rather an ‘area extender’, placed on the offending package to transfer the dissipated heat to an enlarged surface area for air to whisk the heat quickly away thus incurring an acceptably small temperature rise ‘upstream’ (as far as the heat flow in concerned) at the heat source, i.e. the die(s) within the package. The more you increase the power dissipation in the package, the larger the surface area of the heatsink has to be to remove the heat and incur the same temperature rise of the package (given a constant air flow through the heatsink). The required surface area nowadays is so large, and the available space so small, that liquid looped systems to remove the heat from the package and pipe it to a more remote air cooled heat exchange where there is more available space, are becoming ever more commonplace. Automotive cooling systems evolved that way about 70 years ago.

However, it wasn’t the subtleties of the liquid pumped cooling system that caught my sons’ eyes, it was the colour of the heatinks. “Blue, how cool is that?!” Very. After all, who in their right minds would want to buy a system with red(hot) heatsinks? Suffice to say that there is little relationship between surface colour and infra-red radiative loss, that and the fact that under forced convection cooling situations there is even less radiative heat loss compared to convective heat loss.

Things have come a long way since the days of the ZX Spectrum. My childhood wonder at that computer has now been replaced with baffled puzzlement by the youth of today. How much scorn will how the youth of tomorrow pour over the PCs of today? Lots, probably, but I’m sure they’ll still want something colourful.

Why does so much effort go into the cooling of such systems? To ensure it doesn’t get too hot and thus fail is the obvious reason. The flip side of that is that you can ramp up the performance (and thus the power dissipation) more if you can remove the heat effectively enough. Welcome to the wonderful world of overclocking, more of that in part II.

24th May 2011, Nottingham

Japan Must Repair Cooling Function to Stop Nuclear Plant Leaks

Sarah Long — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 19:50:13 +0000

Tokyo Electric Power Co. began efforts Wednesday to stem the possibility of a hydrogen explosion at the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex. The utility, known as Tepco, was preparing Wednesday night to deal with the potential that hydrogen gas in the plant’s No. 1 reactor could come into contact with oxygen and explode—a scenario that could damage the reactor’s containment vessel and leak large quantities of radioactive material. The containment vessel is meant to be airtight. But the overheating of fuel rods following the breakdown of the cooling system in the wake of last month’s earthquake, and the subsequent pumping of seawater into the reactor, are believed to have damaged some of the vents and pipes running in and out of the reactor. Overheating of the reactor is also likely to have damaged the control rods, which help control the speed of a nuclear reaction. As a result, Tepco has said it has been mixing boron into the cooling water for the past three weeks. Boron absorbs neutrons and helps prevent so-called recriticality, in which the nuclear reaction accelerates and reaches a self-sustaining level that is difficult to stop.