An energy-saving supercomputer / data center passive cooling system

Abstract

The application discloses a low-energy-consumption passive heat dissipation system for supercomputing / data centers, wherein the top end of each type of containerized extensible case is connected to one end of a non-activated cooler through a pipeline, the other end of the non-activated cooler is connected to one end of a liquid distribution system through a pipeline, and the other end of the liquid distribution system is connected to the bottom end of each type of containerized extensible case, so as to form a closed pipeline system. The heat dissipation system adopts an "insulation cooling liquid immersion cooling" + "separated heat pipe" + "high-efficiency compact condenser" heat and mass transfer process, is of passive heat dissipation throughout, greatly reduces the heat dissipation power consumption of the supercomputing / data center, and can realize an ultra-low PUE value. In addition, the system can realize higher compactness of architecture assembly and reduce the space occupation scale of the supercomputing / data center. The heat dissipation system has high heat dissipation power, high heat dissipation capacity expandability, fast and convenient computer on / off operation, energy saving and environmental protection.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] The application belongs to the technical field of electronic equipment heat dissipation, and particularly relates to a passive heat dissipation system with low energy consumption for supercomputing centers / data centers. BACKGROUND

[0002] With the rapid development of supercomputing centers / data centers and high-performance / high-power-density electronic chips, the heat generated by large and medium-sized computer clusters such as supercomputing centers is increasing year by year, and according to literature reports, the annual growth rate reaches 20%-40%. Heat dissipation has become a major issue. A large amount of electric energy is used for computer system heat dissipation rather than for calculation, and the effective utilization rate of electric energy is low, and energy is wasted seriously. Developing a new type of low-energy supercomputing center heat dissipation system can greatly reduce PUE and save hundreds of billions of kilowatt-hours of electric energy per year, which is of great significance to double carbon.

[0003] The compactness of the traditional air-cooled heat dissipation system is limited, and high compactness will lead to poor air flow, and air cooling cannot handle the heat dissipation problem of high-power-density high-power chips; the traditional water-cooled heat dissipation system has the fatal risk of leakage and short circuit, and the reliability is low, and the structure of the water-cooled system is complex, and the water pipe layout is difficult; the traditional immersion cooling technology needs to use components such as pumps and water chillers, and the system still has high power consumption. In order to improve the above problems, the present case is generated. SUMMARY

[0004] The purpose of the present application is to provide a passive heat dissipation system with low energy consumption for supercomputing centers / data centers, which can realize effective heat dissipation of supercomputing centers / data centers, has extremely low energy consumption, and the on / off operation of the computer is fast and convenient, energy-saving and environmentally friendly.

[0005] In order to achieve the above purpose, the solution of the present application is:

[0006] A passive heat dissipation system with low energy consumption for supercomputing centers / data centers, comprising a heat plate, a case quick connection / disconnection system, a non-active cooler, a liquid distribution system, a pressure maintenance system, a liquid supplementing / discharge system, a monitoring system and a plurality of container-like expandable cases, wherein the top end of each container-like expandable case is connected to one end of the non-active cooler through a pipeline, the other end of the non-active cooler is connected to one end of the liquid distribution system through a pipeline, and the other end of the liquid distribution system is connected to the bottom end of each container-like expandable case, thereby forming a closed pipeline system.

[0007] The container-like expandable case is used to accommodate heat sources, i.e. a series of circuit components such as the power supply, mainboard, CPU, GPU and memory of the computer, and the container-like expandable case is filled with insulating cooling liquid.

[0008] The quick connection / disconnection system of the case is arranged on the pipeline connecting the top of the container-like expandable case with the passive cooler and the pipeline connecting the bottom of the container-like expandable case with the distribution system.

[0009] The inlet of the passive cooler is communicated with the steam port of the container-like expandable case, and the outlet is arranged at the bottom and communicated with the distribution system.

[0010] The inlet of the distribution system is communicated with the outlet of the passive cooler, and the outlet is arranged in plurality and connected with the bottom of each container-like expandable case through the quick connection / disconnection system of the case.

[0011] The heat plate is arranged in the container-like expandable case and attached to the surface of the heat source.

[0012] The monitoring system is used for monitoring the running state of the system in real time and controlling the actions of the pressure maintaining system and the liquid supplementing / discharging system.

[0013] The pressure maintaining system is used for adjusting the air pressure in the pipeline system under the control of the monitoring system.

[0014] The liquid supplementing / discharging system is used for adjusting the amount of the insulation cooling liquid in the pipeline system under the control of the monitoring system.

[0015] The container-like expandable case has an openable sealing structure with an opening, is hollow inside and is used for accommodating the heat source, and the container-like expandable case is provided with a power supply and various I / O interfaces connected with the accommodated heat source.

[0016] The quick connection / disconnection system of the case adopts a manual valve, an electric valve or a pneumatic valve.

[0017] The passive cooler adopts an external wrapping structure with a chimney effect, generates natural wind through the chimney effect to enhance the heat exchange between air and the cooler, or is directly laid in natural cold sources such as air, river water and sea water to perform natural convection heat dissipation.

[0018] The passive cooler adopts a finned tube, a finned plate, a micro-channel heat exchanger or a high-efficiency compact heat exchanger.

[0019] The heat plate is a closed cavity structure, is filled with liquid working medium inside and has a copper / aluminum / stainless steel shell.

[0020] The monitoring system adopts a liquid level sensor to sense the liquid level state of the insulation cooling liquid in the container-like expandable case and controls the action of the liquid supplementing / discharging system according to the sensing result; the monitoring system adopts an air sensor and a pressure sensor to respectively sense the air content and the pressure of the pipeline system and controls the action of the pressure maintaining system according to the sensing result.

[0021] The boiling point of the insulating coolant filled in the aforementioned container-type expandable enclosure is 30~70 degrees Celsius.

[0022] By adopting the above scheme, this invention employs a heat and mass transfer process of "immersion cooling with insulating coolant" + "separate heat pipes" + "high-efficiency compact condenser," which is a passive cooling system throughout. During operation, it eliminates the need for traditional cooling equipment such as pumps, fans, chillers, water-cooled towers, and heat exchangers. The entire cooling system consumes virtually no energy, significantly reducing the heat dissipation power consumption of supercomputing / data centers. It achieves ultra-low PUE values, highly aligning with national energy conservation and emission reduction strategies, and significantly promoting carbon neutrality and carbon peaking. Furthermore, the system does not impose significant requirements on the compactness of the computer group, allowing for more compact architecture assembly and reducing the space occupied by the supercomputing / data center. The system boasts high heat dissipation power, strong scalability in heat dissipation capacity, and quick and convenient computer integration / disconnection operations, while also being energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Attached Figure Description

[0023] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the overall structure of the present invention;

[0024] Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram of the heat spreader used in an embodiment of the present invention. Detailed Implementation

[0025] The technical solution and beneficial effects of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0026] like Figure 1 As shown, this invention provides a low-energy-consumption passive cooling system for supercomputing / data centers, including a heat spreader 1, a quick-connect / disconnect system for the chassis 2, a passive cooler 3, a liquid distribution system 4, a pressure maintenance system 5, a liquid replenishment / discharge system 6, a monitoring system 7, and several types of containerized scalable chassis 8. The top of each type of containerized scalable chassis 8 is connected to one end of the passive cooler 3 via a pipe, and the other end of the passive cooler 3 is connected to one end of the liquid distribution system 4 via a pipe. The other end of the liquid distribution system 4 is connected to the bottom of each type of containerized scalable chassis 8, thus forming a closed pipe system. These are described in detail below.

[0027] Multiple container-like scalable chassis 8 can be connected in parallel as needed. Figure 1The 3-group cabinet is taken as an example for illustration; the container-like expandable cabinet 8 is a sealed structure with an openable opening, hollow inside, and can be used to accommodate commonly used rack-mounted computers and tower computers, and in use, the computers can be entirely loaded, or the rack-mounted cabinet and tower cabinet can be removed, and only the circuit of the computer is loaded; the container-like expandable cabinet 8 is provided with a power supply and an I / O interface, and can be connected with the loaded computer, and after loading, the container-like expandable cabinet 8 is closed and sealed, so that the subsequent charged insulation cooling liquid / vapor cannot leak.

[0028] The cabinet quick connection / disconnection system 2 is arranged on the pipeline connecting the top end of the container-like expandable cabinet 8 with the passive cooler 3, and on the pipeline connecting the bottom end of the container-like expandable cabinet 8 with the distribution system 4, and is used to realize the quick on-off of the cooling liquid / vapor port of the container-like expandable cabinet 8 and the quick connection / disconnection of the container-like expandable cabinet 8 with the cooling liquid / vapor pipeline, so as to facilitate the user to draw out the cooling liquid of a specific cabinet, and to overhaul, maintain, add, etc. the electronic elements in the cabinet without affecting the operation of other cabinets; in this embodiment, in order to realize the on-off function of the cooling liquid / vapor, manual valves, electric valves, pneumatic valves, etc. can be adopted, and the quick connection / disconnection function can be realized by KF joints, flanges, etc.

[0029] The inlet of the passive cooler 3 is communicated with the vapor port of the container-like expandable cabinet 8, and the outlet is arranged at the bottom and communicated with the distribution system 4, so that the vaporized cooling liquid in the container-like expandable cabinet 8 enters the passive cooler 3, and the vapor is cooled to liquid insulation cooling liquid in the passive cooler 3, and then flows into the distribution system 4 under the action of gravity; the passive cooler 3 in the present application adopts a natural cooling mode, including but not limited to the following implementation modes: being laid in a wrapped space with a chimney effect, so that flowing wind is obtained under the premise of no power consumption, so as to improve the cooling performance and reduce the volume of the cooler (for example, it can be directly laid in a chimney, and the natural suction effect of the air pressure difference between the top and bottom of the chimney is used to generate flowing wind, so as to strengthen the cooling performance of the passive cooler); or being directly laid in a natural cold source such as a river or sea, and relying on the natural convection heat exchange of water to be stronger than that of air, so as to improve the cooling performance and reduce the volume; or being laid in a mountain pass or air outlet position, and relying on natural wind forced convection, so as to improve the cooling performance and reduce the volume; or being directly laid on a roof, and relying on air natural convection heat dissipation. Specifically, finned tube, finned plate, micro-channel heat exchanger, high-efficiency compact heat exchanger, etc. can be adopted.

[0030] The distribution system is used for distributing the backflow insulation cooling liquid, so that the amount of cooling liquid in each type of container type expandable case 8 does not appear too much or too little, the inlet is communicated with the outlet of the passive cooler 3, and the outlet is provided with a plurality of outlets, which are respectively connected with the bottom end of each type of container type expandable case 8 through the case quick connection / disconnection system 2; specifically, the distribution system can adopt but is not limited to the structure form of "liquid level monitoring in the case + cooling liquid inlet regulating valve".

[0031] The heat plate 1 is arranged in the container type expandable case 8 and attached to the surface of the heat source, so as to reduce the heat flow density of the high-power and high-heat flow density element through the enlarged heat dissipation surface, and then quickly transfer the heat to the insulation cooling liquid based on the reinforced boiling structure, and cooperate with Figure 1 As shown, the heat source in the case is usually various electronic chips, such as power supply, mainboard, CPU, GPU, memory and a series of circuit components of the computer, Figure 1 Each group of cases in the container type expandable case 8 is only drawn in the case of one heat source, and the actual heat source in the case is usually multiple. The heat plate 1 in the embodiment adopts an immersion type cooling high-performance heat plate, which is a kind of generalized heat pipe, and cooperates with Figure 2 As shown, it is a multi-layer structure, the shell adopts copper / aluminum / stainless steel material, and the inside has a porous capillary structure and a support structure, and the material is usually the same as the shell material; the heat plate is a closed cavity structure, and the inside is filled with liquid working medium, which is usually water / ethanol / methanol / glycol / fluorinated liquid / ammonia, etc. There is usually almost no air in the heat plate, only the same kind of working medium in liquid and gas state, and both are in a saturated state. The position where the heat plate shell is attached to the heating element (called the evaporation end) absorbs heat and rises in temperature, the adjacent liquid working medium in the inside vaporizes and takes away the heat, and the gaseous working medium flows in the heat plate to the shell part with relatively lower temperature to condense and transfer the heat to the shell (called the condensing end). The condensed liquid flows back to the evaporation end under the capillary force of the porous capillary structure. The condensing end absorbs heat and rises in temperature to be higher than the boiling point of the external insulation cooling liquid. The outer surface of the condensing end has a reinforced boiling structure (usually a wire mesh, a foamed metal, a porous metal sintered body, a groove, etc.), which quickly transfers the heat to the insulation cooling liquid through phase change. The heat plate 1 is usually a multi-stage stepped structure to avoid touching other elements on the circuit board and causing short circuit.

[0032] The monitoring system 7 is used for monitoring the running state of all subsystems in the application in real time, and automatically regulating and controlling all subsystems in real time, and specifically includes a liquid level sensor D, a temperature sensor E, an air sensor F, a pressure sensor G and the like, wherein the liquid level sensor D is used for sensing the liquid level state of the insulating cooling liquid in the container-like expandable cabinet 8, the temperature sensor E, the air sensor F and the pressure sensor G can be arranged on the pipeline of the system, and are respectively used for sensing the temperature, the air content and the pressure and the like in the system, and performing corresponding control according to the sensing result. In addition, the application can also be equipped with a manual regulation and control scheme as an alternative to improve the working reliability.

[0033] The pressure maintaining system 5 is used for regulating and controlling the air pressure of the entire sealed internal space filled with insulating cooling liquid / vapor under the control of the monitoring system 7, and mainly has two regulation and control aspects: one is to discharge the air and other non-condensable gases in the sealed internal space, so as to further reduce the saturation pressure of the insulating cooling liquid, reduce the boiling point, and further reduce the temperature of the heat source such as a chip; the other is to discharge part of the cooling liquid vapor to reduce the air pressure when the total power of the chip in the system is too high, the generation speed of the insulating cooling liquid vapor is greater than the cooling speed of the passive cooler, and the vapor air pressure in the sealed space continuously rises, and to issue an instruction to the computer cluster so that the computer cluster appropriately reduces the computing power consumption and heat generation. The subsystem can adopt but is not limited to the combination form of “atmosphere monitoring + pressure detection + vacuum pump + cold trap”.

[0034] The liquid supplementing / discharging system 6 is used for regulating and controlling the amount of insulating cooling liquid in the entire sealed internal space filled with insulating cooling liquid / vapor under the control of the monitoring system 7, supplementing the liquid in real time when the cooling liquid quality in the space is insufficient to avoid the problem of liquid deficiency, and discharging the liquid in real time (flowing into the recovery container to avoid waste) when the cooling liquid in the space is too much to avoid the problem of excessive liquid amount. The subsystem can adopt but is not limited to the form of “liquid level monitoring + automatic valve”.

[0035] When the application works, the container-like expandable cabinet 8 is filled with insulating cooling liquid, which is combined with Figure 1 A and B are liquid and gaseous insulating cooling liquids respectively, the boiling point of the insulating cooling liquid needs to be lower than the junction temperature of the chip in the cabinet, and is usually 30-70 degrees Celsius, and the insulating fluorinated liquid such as 3M HFE-7100 is usually selected.

[0036] The overall heat dissipation process of the application is as follows:

[0037] The circuits and various electronic components inside the container-like expandable case 8 are completely immersed in the low-boiling-point insulating coolant, and the heat emitted by the chip components is taken away in the form of latent heat of phase change through boiling of the insulating coolant. Generally, small-power electronic components such as capacitors and resistors have low heat power and heat flux density, and generally do not need additional enhanced boiling technology, but can take away heat by direct immersion in the coolant, relying on natural convection or boiling to ensure that the components do not overheat; high-power components such as CPUs and GPUs have high heat power and high heat flux density, and need enhanced boiling technology to improve the phase change heat transfer performance of the insulating coolant, otherwise the heat cannot be quickly taken away and the temperature cannot be effectively reduced. In the present application, a high-performance vapor chamber (Vapor Chamber, VC, also known as a vapor chamber) with an area greater than the surface area of the component is tightly contacted with and firmly fixed to the high-power-density components such as CPUs and GPUs, and an indium sheet or a thin coating of a thermal interface material with self-solidification performance is installed on the contact surface between the two to reduce the contact thermal resistance (such as self-solidification liquid metal thermal paste. These thermal interface materials cannot react with the insulating coolant and cannot fall off into the coolant). The high-performance vapor chamber quickly spreads the high-density heat flow of the components such as CPUs and GPUs into low-density heat flow, and relies on the enhanced boiling structure on the surface of the vapor chamber to quickly take away the heat through phase change of the coolant.

[0038] The gasified insulation cooling liquid gas flows upward due to the pressure difference, gathers in the heat source-free area at the upper part of the cabinet, enters the gas main pipe through the upper valve of the cabinet quick connection / disconnection system 2, and then enters the high-efficiency compact passive cooler 3. The gaseous insulation cooling liquid is passively heat-exchanged with the external environment in the passive cooler 3, is condensed into liquid insulation cooling liquid, and flows into the liquid distribution system 4 under the action of gravity. The liquid distribution system 4 reasonably distributes the cooling liquid to each cabinet, completes the heat and mass transfer circulation of the cooling liquid, and ensures that the heat generating elements in each cabinet are effectively immersed in the cooling liquid. In this process, the monitoring system 7 can detect the composition and pressure of the gas space of the entire system in real time. Firstly, the air and other non-condensable gases in the sealed internal space are discharged to further reduce the saturation pressure of the insulation cooling liquid, reduce the boiling point, and thus reduce the temperature of the heat source such as a chip. Secondly, when the total power of the chips in the system is too high, the insulation cooling liquid vapor generation rate is greater than the cooling rate of the passive cooler, and the steam pressure in the sealed space continues to rise, part of the cooling liquid vapor is discharged to reduce the pressure, and the computer cluster is instructed to appropriately reduce the computing power consumption and heat generation. The monitoring system 7 also detects the total amount of cooling liquid in the entire system in real time, and controls the liquid supplementing / discharging system 6 to supplement liquid when the total amount is insufficient (usually manifested as that the heat generating elements in the cabinet are not effectively immersed). Generally, after the present application enters a steady state, the pressure maintaining system 5 and the liquid supplementing / discharging system 6 rarely need to operate, and basically do not generate power consumption. The monitoring system 7 monitors the operation of the entire application through sensors installed in each subsystem (monitoring indicators include pressure, liquid level, temperature, gas composition, dielectric constant, etc. The types and quantities of sensors in each subsystem are not necessarily the same), and adjusts the fault and abnormal operation in time. Generally, the total power of the sensors of the monitoring system 7 is usually less than 10w, and basically does not generate power consumption.

[0039] The monitoring system 7 monitors the liquid level D in each cabinet and displays it on the monitoring screen. The liquid level of the cabinet is controlled to be too low to increase the liquid inflow, so that the heat generating elements in the cabinet are always kept in the immersed state and effectively cooled. The monitoring system monitors the pressure G. When the pressure exceeds the threshold, the pressure maintaining system is opened to discharge some gas in the system, so that the pressure in the cooling system does not exceed the threshold. The system pressure is too high mainly because there is air in the gas phase space in the system, because air is difficult to liquefy. Usually after several times of such pumping, the gas space in the system is basically free of air, and the sensor F has almost no air signal. The gas phase space is only gaseous fluorinated liquid. Under the condition that the cooling capacity is sufficient, the system pressure will always remain stable, and the pressure maintaining system basically does not need to start. The liquid level D of the entire cooling system is monitored. When the liquid level of the entire cooling system is insufficient / excessive, the liquid supplementing / discharging system 6 is opened to adjust the amount of fluorinated liquid in the entire cooling system, so that all cabinets have sufficient fluorinated liquid, and the upper part of the system has sufficient gas phase space.

[0040] The above examples only illustrate the technical ideas of the present application, and cannot be used to limit the protection scope of the present application. Any modification made on the basis of the technical ideas of the present application and technical solutions falls within the protection scope of the present application.

Claims

1. A low energy consumption supercomputing / data center passive cooling system, characterized in that: The system comprises a heat plate, a quick connection / disconnection system of a case, a passive cooler, a distribution system, a pressure maintaining system, a liquid supplementing / discharging system, a monitoring system and several kinds of container-like expandable cases, wherein the top end of each kind of container-like expandable case is connected to one end of the passive cooler through a pipeline, the other end of the passive cooler is connected to one end of the distribution system through a pipeline, and the other end of the distribution system is connected to the bottom end of each kind of container-like expandable case, thereby forming a closed pipeline system. The container-like expandable case is used for accommodating a heat source, and is filled with insulating cooling liquid. The quick connection / disconnection system of the case is arranged on the pipeline connecting the top end of the container-like expandable case and the passive cooler, and on the pipeline connecting the bottom end of the container-like expandable case and the distribution system. The inlet of the passive cooler is communicated with the steam port of the container-like expandable case, and the outlet is arranged at the bottom and communicated with the distribution system. The inlet of the distribution system is communicated with the outlet of the passive cooler, and the outlet is arranged in plurality and connected to the bottom end of each kind of container-like expandable case through the quick connection / disconnection system of the case. The heat plate is arranged in the container-like expandable case and attached to the surface of the heat source. The monitoring system is used for monitoring the running state of the system in real time and controlling the actions of the pressure maintaining system and the liquid supplementing / discharging system. The pressure maintaining system is used for adjusting the air pressure in the pipeline system under the control of the monitoring system. The liquid supplementing / discharging system is used for adjusting the amount of insulating cooling liquid in the pipeline system under the control of the monitoring system. The container-like expandable case is a sealed structure with an opening that can be opened, is hollow inside and is used for accommodating a heat source, and is provided with a power supply and an I / O interface connected to the accommodated heat source; the quick connection / disconnection system of the case adopts a manual valve, an electric valve or a pneumatic valve to control the on-off of fluid on both sides, and adopts a KF vacuum joint to realize the dismounting or mounting of the case from the whole heat dissipation system.

2. The low energy supercomputing / data center passive cooling system of claim 1, wherein: The passive cooler adopts an external wrapping structure with a chimney effect, generates natural wind through the chimney effect to enhance the heat exchange between air and the cooler, or is directly laid in a natural cold source for natural convection heat dissipation.

3. The low energy supercomputing / data center passive cooling system of claim 1, wherein: The passive cooler adopts a finned tube, a finned plate, a micro-channel heat exchanger or a high-efficiency compact heat exchanger.

4. The low energy supercomputing / data center passive cooling system of claim 1, wherein: The heat plate is a closed cavity structure, is filled with liquid working medium inside, and has a copper / aluminum / stainless steel shell.

5. The low energy supercomputing / data center passive cooling system of claim 1, wherein: The monitoring system adopts a liquid level sensor to sense the liquid level state of the insulating cooling liquid in the container-like expandable case and controls the action of the liquid supplementing / discharging system according to the sensing result; the monitoring system adopts an air sensor and a pressure sensor to respectively sense the air content and the pressure of the pipeline system and controls the action of the pressure maintaining system according to the sensing result.

6. The low energy supercomputing / data center passive cooling system of claim 1, wherein: The boiling point of the insulating cooling liquid filled in the container-like expandable case is 30-70 degrees Celsius.

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