Performance analysis on the liquid cooling plate with the new Tesla valve capillary channel based on the fluid solid coupling simulation

Abstract

Liquid cold plates are extensively utilized for heat dissipation in new energy vehicle fuel cell stacks. However, practical applications have revealed issues such as uneven heating and significant pressure loss in the heat dissipation channel. To address these concerns, this study introduces the design of a forward Tesla valve capillary heat dissipation channel and a reverse Tesla valve capillary heat dissipation channel, aimed at mitigating the eddy current issue at bends inside the capillary bionic flow channel. Under the same working conditions, the performance indicators such as the pressure distribution of the original, forward and reverse heat dissipation channel of liquid cold plates were obtained respectively. The results show that the forward cooling channel significantly reduced the pressure loss of the liquid cooling plate whilst the reverse channel effectively improved the heat transfer. Aiming at the problem of excessive pressure difference encountered in the reverse Tesla valve capillary channel, different numbers of valves and branches were designed on the reverse Tesla valve capillary cooling channel. It was found that a higher cooling capacity can be obtained with less pumping power when the aspect ratio between the number of valves and the number of branches of the reverse Tesla valve capillary liquid cooling plate was controlled in the range from 1.13 to 1.6.