Development of a Passive Capillary-Pumped Cooling System for High-Performance Electronics

Abstract:
An innovative passive capillary-pumped cooling system for high-performance electronics is presented. Similar to heat pipes, evaporation and condensation of a working fluid is employed for heat transfer. In order to avoid low operating pressure as well as complex evacuation and degassing of the system, a low saturation temperature heat transfer fluid is employed. Compared to a heat pipe, the heat can be transported over longer distances using flexible hoses as the fluid lines. Employing 3M Novec 649 as the heat transfer fluid, the passive cooling system is capable of dissipating heat fluxes of 7 W/cm². The performance of the passive system in cooling a central processing unit (CPU) is compared to a conventional air based active cooling system.