Coolant tray of liquid based cooling device

Abstract

A liquid based cooling device includes a pump for driving a coolant through a coolant tray that is positionable on a heat generating device and a radiator that dissipates the heat into the surrounding. The coolant tray includes a housing on which coolant inlet and outlet are formed for receiving the coolant from the pump and discharging the coolant to the radiator. The coolant tray also forms a recess in which a thermally conductive base forming a coolant channel is received in a liquid tight manner. The pump includes a casing in which coolant inlet and outlet are formed. The inlet of the coolant tray is integrally connected to the outlet of the pump and the housing of the coolant tray and the casing of the pump are integrally formed with each other with an integrally formed conduit connected therebetween. This simplifies the manufacturing of the cooling device and reduces the overall size of the cooling device.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention generally relates to a cooling device using a liquid, such as water, as coolant, for cooling particularly a computer system, and in particular to a coolant tray of the cooling device that is positionable on a heat generating device of the computer system for effectively and efficiently removing heat from the heat generating device with the coolant flowing through an internal channel of the coolant tray. [0003] 2. The Related Art [0004] Conventionally, a heat sink, such as an aluminum extrusion having spaced fins, is positioned on and in physical engagement with a heat generating device, such as a central processing unit, of a computer system for removing heat from and maintaining proper operation temperature of the central processing unit. Such a heat sink is an air-cooling device that removes heat from the central processing unit with airflows. However, such an aluminum extrusion heat sink is ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0011] Since three parts, including the housing of the coolant tray, the casing of the pump, and the conduit connected between the housing and the casing are integrally formed together with the same material as a single unitary member, the structure and manufacturing of the cooling device is simplified and the overall size reduced, making the cooling device in accordance with the present invention particularly suitable for portable electronic devices that have a very limited interior space for accommodation of the cooling device, while requiring efficient removal of heat.

Problems solved by technology

However, such an aluminum extrusion heat sink is subject to limitation in removing a great amount of heat.

Such an arrangement makes the assembling of the cooling device complicated for there are a great number of parts, including those pipes, which must be individually coupled to the coolant tray, the coolant pump, and the radiator.

In addition, such a great number of the parts makes the cooling device expensive in manufacturing and bulky in size, which is against the trend of down-cost and miniaturization of the computer or electronic industry and is thus not suitable for applications in portable devices.

Images