Enhancement of the critical heat flux by using heat spreader

Abstract

Direct immersion cooling has been considered as one of the promising methods to cool high power density chips. A fluorocarbon liquid such as FC-72, which is chemically and electrically compatible with microelectronic components, is known to be a proper coolant for direct immersion cooling. However, boiling in this dielectric fluid is characterized by its small value of the critical heat flux. In this experimental study, we tried to enhance the critical heat flux by increasing the nucleate boiling area in the heat spreader (Conductive Immersion Cooling Module). Heat flux of 2 MW/m2 was successfully removed at the heat source temperature below 78°C in FC-72. Some modified boiling curves at high heat flux were obtained from these modules. Also, the concept of conduction path length is very important in enhancing the critical heat flux by increasing the heat spreader surface area where nucleate boiling occurs.