Hybrid Cooling System for Electronics Equipment During Power Surge Operation

Abstract

The performance of a hybrid phase-change material (PCM)-based cooling system is investigated experimentally to meet the requirement of power surge effect in electronics equipment. The normal cooling operation of the electronic equipment for a long period using heat sink is also studied. The thermal performance of the hybrid heat sink is studied with three different PCMs: Eicosane, 1-Hexadecanol, and Paraffin. The hybrid PCM-based heat sink is studied for different orientations of PCM and convective cooling area in the heat sink to protect electronic components from the potentially dangerous and disruptive power surge operations. The performance of the hybrid PCM-based heat sinks is compared with conventional air-based heat sinks with and without a fan. In case of hybrid PCM-based heat sink, the fan is operated at 6 V all the time irrespective of the normal or power surge operation. Whereas, in case of air-based heat sink (without PCM), the fan is operated at 12 V during power surging and at 6 V during normal operation time. It is observed that the hybrid PCM-based heat sink with fan performs better than conventional air-based heat sink with fan during surging operation by reducing the peak temperature of 5.6 °C. However, their performance is comparable during post-surging operation. Thus, the power consumption, as well as the noise, gets reduced using hybrid PCM-based heat sink with fan during surging operation. Besides, the life of fan used in hybrid PCM-based heat sink increases, which in turn increases the service life of electronic components.