High-performance thermal management system for high-power LEDs based on double-nozzle spray cooling

Abstract

Thermal management is one of the main challenges for high-power LEDs. As one of the state-of-the-art thermal management approaches, spray cooling can meet the requirements of fast cooling speed, large heat transfer coefficient, and less energy consumption when it provides thermal management for electronics with high heat flux. In this study, a high-performance spray cooling system for high-power LEDs is designed and established. The influence of nozzle configuration, flow rate, and nozzle-to-surface distance on the heat transfer characteristics are experimentally and numerically investigated. The system shows excellent heat dissipation capacity. Two different nozzle configurations are compared and the results show that the double-nozzle configuration possesses the highest single-phase heat transfer coefficient, reaching up to 20.7 kW/m2·K with the flow rate of 150 mL/min. Interestingly, double-nozzle, which owns better heat transfer performance compared to single-nozzle, shows worse temperature uniformity inside the testing module. Simultaneously, the junction temperature of double-nozzle at the center chip can also be controlled to 85 °C corresponding to a 10% reduction for single-nozzle. The proposed cooling system may enable the further application of spray cooling in electronics like high-power LEDs, potentially reducing the energy consumption in cooling electronics and promoting the utilization of low-grade thermal energy.