Recently I read an article on cutting-edge research demonstrating the feasibility of data storage on media for a million years! A few years ago this might not have resonated with me as a thermal engineer working to cool electronics, but now it does. Let me explain why. Research & Development on IT equipment thermal management over the past few decades has justifiably … [Read more...]
Calculating the Heat Dissipation Rate for a Vapor Condenser Heat Sink
This article presents an analysis methodology that can be used to calculate the thermal resistance of a vertical downward facing vapor condenser plate-fin heat sink, i.e. a heat sink in which the plate-fins extend downward from a horizontal base into a coolant vapor region and whose function it is to condense this vapor into liquid condensate. Such heat sinks are used in … [Read more...]
Energy Consumption of Information Technology Data Centers
Madhusudan Iyengar and Roger Schmidt IBM, Poughkeepsie, New York Many of our day-to-day activities, including Internet searches, handheld electronics usage, automated cash withdrawal, and online hotel and airline reservations, require the use of remote databases and computational infrastructure comprised of large server farms located at some faraway location from the consumer. … [Read more...]
Thermal Optimization And Design For Manufacturability Of Liquid-Air Hybrid Cooling Systems
Introduction Existing technologies typically utilize air to carry the heat away from a heat sink that is thermally coupled to the microprocessor. Higher performance devices such as workstations, "gaming" PCs, or tower servers that utilize components with greater power dissipation can require more aggressive cooling technology. A high-performance alternative to heat sinks is a … [Read more...]
Design For Manufacturability Of Forced Convection Air Cooled Fully Ducted Heat Sinks
Introduction The requisite thermal management for a microprocessor is most often achieved via an aluminum heat sink (fin structure) and a small fan. The effort discussed herein deals with the development of a 'design for manufacturability' methodology for forced convection cooled, plate fin arrays used to form high performance heat sinks for electronics cooling applications. In … [Read more...]
