| | Category | EN | P13 | Improving Heat Transfer in a Passive Liquid Cooling System |
| | Abstract | Computer processors are continually getting faster, and putting out more |
| | heat. The increased heat has the potential to damage the processor and |
| | other components, which can be extremely costly. The traditional way to |
| | combat overheating is a heatsink and fan. Heatsinks are designed to be |
| | contiguous with the surface of processors, increasing the surface area, |
| | which increases heat transfer. |
| | |
| | In phase 1 of this project, it was found that a brass, water filled heatsink |
| | that utilized natural convection cooled a CPU better than a standard |
| | heatsink and fan. The goal of this project was to increase the efficacy of |
| | the phase 1 heatsink. A new design was made for the phase 2 heatsink |
| | that consisted of a water filled brass box with 2 concentric coils of copper |
| | tubing that are open to the air. |
| | |
| | Both the phase 1 and 2 heatsinks were tested by running a CPU stress |
| | tester, and a temperature monitoring software that recorded the |
| | processor's temperature every 5 seconds simultaneously. A third |
| | program, made specifically for this project, was used to average the |
| | temperatures recorded, and find the difference between the initial |
| | temperature and the average temperature. |
| | |
| | In a facility with 100 computers, 3000 KWH of electricity consumed solely |
| | by CPU fans. If that facility adopted the phase 2 heatsink, the 3000 KWH |
| | would be cut from the electricity bill, and decrease the drain on the natural |
| | resources used to produce the energy. |
| | Bibliography | Bejan, A (2004). Convection heat transfer. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & |
| | Sons. |
| | |
| | Janna, W.S. (2000). Engineering heat transfer. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press |
| | LLC. |
| | |
| | Shah, & Subarau, & Mashelkar, R. K., E. C., R. A. (1988). Heat transfer |
| | equipment design. Boca Raton, FL: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation. |