Evaporative cooling system

Abstract

The evaporative cooling system comprises: evaporative cooling modules, a liquid supply system which comprises a liquid supply pump and a tube, and which supplies a refrigerant liquid to the evaporative cooling modules; an air supply system which comprises air supply tubes, and which supplies warm air to the evaporative cooling modules; an exhaust system which comprises an exhaust pump and a tube, and which exhausts air containing a refrigerant vapor from the evaporative cooling modules; a reflux system which comprises a primary heat exchanger and a reflux tube, and which condenses the refrigerant vapor to return the condensed refrigerant liquid to the liquid supply system; and a heat exhaust system which comprises a secondary heat exchanger and tubes, and which discharges heat absorbed from the primary heat exchanger.

Description

INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE[0001]The present application claims priority from Japanese application JP 2007-149882 filed on Jun. 6, 2007, the content of which is hereby incorporated by reference into this application.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to a cooling system for a heating element, and more particularly to an evaporative cooling system suitable for information platform apparatuses such as a server, a network, and a storage which are required to have higher performance and higher density.[0003]Conventionally, evaporative cooling is known as means for efficiently cooling heating elements, such as a processor, an LSI, electronic devices, power devices, and dynamic devices. The evaporative cooling utilizing latent heat of refrigerant is considered promising for improving the cooling efficiency and reducing the weight and size of cooling system, as compared with air cooling and liquid cooling which utilize heat conduction and heat transfer from a hea...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0032]Further, another feature is that the planar heating element is substantially vertically arranged, and that the refrigerant liquid is supplied to the upper part of the vaporizing plate, and the air containing the refrigerant vapor and the residual refrigerant liquid are discharged from the lower part of the vaporizing plate. Thereby, it is possible to configure the liquid supply system or the discharge system which is suitable for the vertical heating element, and in which the cooling system can be miniaturized.

[0033]Further, another feature is that the closed circuit system is configured by the liquid supply system for supplying the refrigerant to the vaporizing plate, the exhaust system, and the reflux system which returns the refrigerant to the liquid supply system, and that the open circuit system is configured by the air supply system for intaking air from ambient air, the exhaust system, and the reflux system for discharging the air to ambient air. Thereby, it is possible to increase the latent heat flux La by supplying air of a low vapor pressure ea to the vaporizing plate by the use of ambient air in the simple open loop system, while circulating the refrigerant in the closed circuit system.

[0034]Further, another feature is that the system for effecting reflux from exhaust system through the primary heat exchange system is miniaturized in such a way that the primary refrigerant vapor with heat taken from the heating element in the primary heat exchange system is cooled and condensed by the secondary refrigerant, and that the heat absorbed by the secondary refrigerant from the primary refrigerant vapor is discharged in the secondary heat exchange system, and is that the cooling efficiency is improved by keeping the heat exhaust place in the secondary heat exchange system away from the vicinity of the heating element.

[0035]Further, another feature is that the evaporative cooling is efficiently performed in such a way that a required amount of the refrigerant and air is supplied to the vaporizing plate by controlling the supply liquid amount, the supply liquid temperature, the supply air amount or the supply air temperature according to the heat generation amount, the power consumption, the operation rate, or the temperature of the heating element.

[0036]According to claims 1-5 of the present application, it is possible to efficiently perform the evaporative cooling even for a heating element with high heat generation density by increasing the latent heat flux La. According to claims 6-13 of the present application, it is possible to effect the reduction in size and weight of the cooling system configured by the liquid supply system, the air supply system, the exhaust system, the reflux system, and the like. The present invention is particularly effective to increase the mounting density and to improve performance of major devices, such as a processor and an LSI in information platform devices, such as a server, a network, and a storage.

Problems solved by technology

Thus, there is a problem that vapor pressure of the refrigerant in the vicinity of the heating element is increased to make it difficult to evaporate.

Thus, there is also a problem that the mounting density of the heating element cannot be increased.

Thus, there is a problem that these components hinder the miniaturization and the improvement of reliability of the cooling system.

Thus, there is a problem that the vapor pressure of the refrigerant is increased in the circulatory system and thereby the vaporization efficiency is lowered.

However, such configuration prevents the miniaturization and weight reduction of the cooling system.

Thus, there is a problem that as the evaporation is performed on the front side, the vapor pressure is increased on the back side to thereby make it difficult to evaporate the refrigerant.

As described above, the conventional techniques have problems that the evaporative cooling efficiency is low and the miniaturization and weight reduction of the cooling system is difficult.

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