Novel heat pipe radiator for vertical CPU cooling and its experimental study

• Published in: International journal of heat and mass transfer Vol. 130; pp. 912 - 922
• Main Authors: Xiahou, Guowei, Zhang, Junjie, Ma, Rui, Liu, Yepeng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.03.2019; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Aluminum; Austenitic stainless steels; Central processing units; Condensation; Cooling; CPU cooling; CPUs; Heat pipe radiator; Heat pipes; Heat transfer; Heat transfer performance; Heating; Performance evaluation; Pipes; Radiators; Stability; Start-up performance; Symmetry; Thermal resistance; Wind speed; Heat transfer performance; Heat pipe radiator; Start-up performance; CPU cooling
• ISSN: 0017-9310; 1879-2189
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2018.11.002

•A pulsating plate type heat pipe radiator with multiple condensation ends is designed and manufactured.•The heat transfer performance and start-up performance of the vertical radiator are studied.•The advantages of this vertical radiator over the aluminum fin radiator are studied. A vertical radiator with multi pulse condensation ends and a plane evaporating end for vertical CPU cooling is developed. A 304 stainless steel test piece is processed and a detailed experimental study of heat transfer performance and start-up performance is performed. The influence of liquid filling rate, heating power and wind speed on the two performance of vertical heat pipe radiator is analyzed, and compared with aluminum fin computer CPU radiator. The results show that when the radiator works stably, the optimal filling ratio is 25%, the lowest thermal resistance is only 0.1 °C/W; the average temperature of heat source increases with the increase of heating power and decreases with the wind speed. The temperature distributions of the five cold ends exhibit a symmetry that attenuates from the middle to the both sides. In addition, when the radiator starts up, as the heating power increases, the initial start-up time becomes shorter, the start-up temperature becomes lower, and the stability is also better. But there is no symmetry in the start sequence of the condensation ends. Compared with the current aluminum fin radiator, the vertical radiator has superior heat dissipation performance, temperature uniformity and stability. Such as, under 80 W heating power, the average heat source temperature is 66 °C, the average temperature deviation of the heat source is 3.16 °C, compared to the aluminum fin radiator, they dropped by 17.3 °C and 0.61 °C, respectively.