Compact Spray Cooling Module for Viable High-heat-flux Thermal Management

随着微电子技术和电力电子技术的飞速发展，电子元件的小型化和功率不断提高。大量的热量需要通过小区域传递，而温升必须低于由材料和可靠性限制所决定的安全限制。为了处理高热通量，迫切需要创新的液体冷却技术。尽管大量研究表明喷雾冷却具有最高的冷却效率，但长期以来，喷雾冷却一直面临着成为可行的冷却技术的重大差距。这项研究将通过开发一种紧凑的喷雾冷却模块（CSCM）来缩小长期以来的研究与应用差距，该模块具有内部喷雾冲击，可以直接安装进行冷却。

The rapid technological advancements in microelectronics and power electronics have been accompanied by continuous miniaturization and power increase of electronic components. Large amounts of heat need to transfer through small areas, while temperature rises must be below safety limits that are dictated by material and reliability constraints. To handle the high heat fluxes, there is an urgent need for aggressive and innovative liquid cooling techniques. Despite its highest cooling effectiveness demonstrated by numerous research studies, spray cooling has long been facing significant gap from being a viable cooling technique. This research will close the longstanding research-application gap by developing a Compact Spray Cooling Module (CSCM), which has internal spray impingement and can be directly mounted for cooling. CSCM has a novel spray generator that generates predictable, controllable and effective spray flow. CSCM can cool electronic components using water or other non-dielectric coolants. This will be achieved by developing an electrically-insulating, thermally-conductive, and surface-enhanced wall using Aluminum Nitride plate and copper micro-particles. CSCM has efficient fluid management so that vapor and liquid are constantly removed to sustain effective free-surface flows inside CSCM. CSCM is different from all previous spray cooling setups in terms of spray, surface, and fluid management. Fundamental understanding of its unique fluid dynamics and heat transfer is crucial to the development of CSCM. In the Thermal Management & Multiphase Flows Lab at UBC Okanagan, extensive experimental studies combined with theoretical analyses and numerical simulations will be conducted to investigate the hydrodynamics of spray flow, the fluid mechanics and heat transfer of spray impact boiling on microporous surfaces, and the flow dynamics of vapor and liquid in fluid management. The research will provide important contribution to the community of thermal fluid sciences. CSCM will make spray cooling viable for computers, data centers, power converters, hybrid/electric vehicles, satellites, spacecraft, aircraft, directed energy weapons, radars, etc. With superior cooling capacity, CSCM will speed up or enable next-generation products and technologies in many high-tech industries in Canada such as microelectronics, power electronics, aviation, and defense. The trained HQP will become highly qualified engineers of liquid cooling and thermal management.