Experimental and numerical study on two-phase minichannel cold plate for high-power device

Abstract

In this study, the flow and heat transfer performance of the two-phase minichannel cold plates with 10 kW level heat load is designed and studied. The numerical simulation can guide the optimization of the structure on both channel level and whole level, which roughly matches the experimental results. An abnormal phenomenon that the temperature increase with flow rate is observed and explained by boiling point change. The influence of channel structure, fluid characteristics, flow uniformity, and pressure resistance on cold plate temperature and pressure drop are investigated. The fusiform channel performs better than the rectangular channel and refrigerant R1234ze(E) beats R1233zd(E) in the cold plate. Flow uniformity and pressure drop improvement methods are explained and tested. The cold plate can keep its surface temperature below 80 °C and pressure drop below 0.6 bar when the heating power is 20 kW, utilizing R1234ze(E) with a temperature of 60 °C and a flow rate of 9 L/min. A high-power two-phase cold plate can be designed with reference to this study.