Simulation Study of Influencing Factors of Immersion Phase-Change Cooling Technology for Data Center Servers

Abstract

The immersion phase-change cooling technology utilizes the latent heat of the cooling liquid to dissipate heat by directly contacting the cooling liquid with the heat-generating electronic chip, which can meet the cooling requirements of current high heat flux density data centers. In this paper, the effect of different factors on the heat dissipation performance of immersion phase-change cooling technology was explored through numerical simulation. The results show that, under certain power conditions, the inlet temperature and flow rate of the cooling water in the condensation module, as well as the different arrangement of servers, have a significant impact on the heat dissipation performance of the entire system. The inlet water temperature mainly affects the chip temperature after stabilization. With the decrease in the inlet temperature, the chip surface temperature decreases significantly. The inlet water flow rate mainly affects the time required for the heat exchange to reach the desired temperature. With the increase in the inlet flow rate, the required cooling time is shortened. As the spacing between servers increases, the thermal safety and stability of the entire system increase. When the spacing between servers increases from 5 mm to 15 mm, the highest temperature and the temperature uniformity coefficient between the systems decrease significantly. When the spacing increases from 15 mm to 25 mm, the highest temperature and the temperature uniformity coefficient decrease slightly. These results can provide useful information for the designers of immersion phase-change cooling systems to improve the cooling efficiency of data centers, save energy, and ensure the safe operation of related computers, servers, and communication systems.

Keywords

• immersion
• cooling
• phase change
• boiling heat transfer