Many companies we work with prefer to design their own cold plates and have another company do the DFMA review and the manufacturing. ATS’ extensive capability for manufacturing cold plates is demonstrated in the wide variety of tubed cold plates it produces to meet each customer’s specific requirements. Copper, stainless steel, aluminum, 4 or 48 passes, ATS has the manufacturing capability to make nearly any tubed cold plate. Different examples of these custom cold plates, made in the USA, are described on the ATS website at the link: https://www.qats.com/Products/Liquid-Cooling/Custom-Cold-Plates
CPC has a very helpful white paper and funny but very useful video on the topic of understanding coolants and components’ materials of construction and their interaction. This is one of those niche topic areas that some may not consider, but, is key to avoiding performance and reliability issues in liquid cooling systems. These are no cost, no email registration required.
The addition of nanoparticles to a coolant are an alternative approach that can be considered to improve the performance of a liquid cooled system or perhaps to further reduce the size of such a system. But nanoparticles are not necessarily well known by engineers engaged in thermal management. This list of material may help.
First, a new paper by Moita, Moreira and Pereira, does an excellent job of reviewing nanofluids for the next generation of thermal management. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge in this space by looking at typical nanoparticle/base fluid mixtures used and combined in technical and functional solutions. It covers the science of nanofluids and their practical application. You can download this open-access paper from the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, at this link (download is a PDF): Nanofluids for the Next Generation Thermal Management of Electronics: A Review
Second, ATS was fortunate enough to have had on our research staff, Dr. Reza Azizian. He and others authored a white paper titled “Nanofluids in Electronics Cooling Applications”. This piece discusses the theory and use of nanofluids for thermal management. We’ve posted that paper on the ATS blog here: Nanofluids in Electronics Cooling Applications.
We hope you find these resources helpful. Like always, if you have trouble accessing them, drop us a comment and we’ll get you a copy.
Nanoparticles Shapes & Forms Image used by permission from the artist normaals
Chillers can be a key component in the liquid loop. They serve the function of conditioning the coolant before it heads back into the cold plate in a liquid loop. The standard refrigeration cycle of recirculating chillers is displayed below in Fig. 1.
An example of a standard liquid cooling loop using a heat exchanger to transfer heat from the liquid to the ambient. (Advanced Thermal Solutions, Inc.)
The choice of the chiller and the fluid are an important part of the creation of the liquid loop. ATS has some resources to help engineers in this work.
First, engineers can get some help identifying the right fluid to use in their liquid loop with our article “Engineering How-To: Choosing the Right Fluid to Use with Cold Plates“. While water is the most common fluid, our article helps engineers with a specification grid on which fluid to use given different applications.
Another helpful resource for engineers is our article, “Cold Plates and Recirculating Chillers for Liquid Cooling Systems“. This article helps engineers understand the use of both cold plates and chillers deployed in the liquid loop. We also include a comparison of ATS and other industry chillers for quick reference for engineers.
But what if your new to how the liquid cooling loop works? Our 2 min. video walks engineers through. The video “What is a Cold Plate and How Does it Work” is a 2 minute video on the ATS YouTube Channel showing how the liquid loop works.
The liquid cooling loop and some key features of
Finally, ATS has a line or recirculating, immersion and TEC based chillers that engineers can deploy in their liquid loop to efficiently cool high power electronics. You can learn about them on our web sit here: “ATS Family of recirculating, immersion and TEC based chillers“.
ATS Family of Recirculating, TEC Based and Immersion Chillers
This article presents basic equations for liquid cooling and provides numerical examples on how to calculate the loads in a typical liquid cooling system. When exploring the use of liquid cooling for thermal management, calculations are needed to predict its performance. While it is often assumed that a liquid coolant itself dissipates heat from a component to the ambient, this is not the case. A closed loop liquid cooling system requires a liquid-to-air heat exchanger. Because of its structure, several equations must be calculated to fully understand the performance and behavior of a liquid cooled system.
Cold plates bring localized cooling by transferring heat to a liquid that dissipates into the ambient or a secondary liquid. ATS cold plates cool high-powered electronics, IGBT modules, lasers, motor devices, automotive components, medical equipment, and other applications where liquid cooling is needed. Their internal, mini-channel fin structure enhances the surface area to maximize heat transfer with low pressure drop characteristics and provides uniform surface temperature.
