This article was downloaded by: [University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)]

On: 06 May 2014, At: 21:38

Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer
House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Heat Transfer Engineering

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uhte20

Experimental Study on Closed-Loop Two-Phase

Thermosyphon Devices for Cooling MCMs
Min-Kyun Na, Jin-Seok Jeon, Ho-Young Kwak, Sang-Sig Nam
a
Mechanical Engineering Department, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea
b
H/W Environment Section, Electronics and Telecommunication Research Institute,
Taejon, Korea
Published online: 29 Oct 2010.

To cite this article: Min-Kyun Na, Jin-Seok Jeon, Ho-Young Kwak, Sang-Sig Nam (2001) Experimental Study on
Closed-Loop Two-Phase Thermosyphon Devices for Cooling MCMs, Heat Transfer Engineering, 22:2, 29-39, DOI:
10.1080/01457630116920

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01457630116920

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”)
contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors
make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability
for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions
and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of
the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of
information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands,
costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or
systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution
in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
 Heat Transfer Engineering , 22:29–39, 2001
Copyright ° C 2001 Taylor & Francis
0145–7632/01 $12.00 + .00

Experimental Study on
Closed-Loop Two-Phase
Thermosyphon Devices for
Cooling MCMs
Downloaded by [University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)] at 21:38 06 May 2014

MIN-KYUN NA, JIN-SEOK JEON, and HO-YOUNG KWAK

Mechanical Engineering Department, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea

SANG-SIG NAM
H/W Environment Section, Electronics and Telecommunication Research Institute, Taejon, Korea

Thermosyphon cooling modules, to cool multichip modules (MCMs), were designed and tested. The
cooling module consists of a cold plate with microŽ nned channels and a plate-type integrated
condenser. A separate  ow model was employed to predict the mass  ux and the pressure drop in the
channel of the cold plate. The local and average convective boiling heat transfer coefŽ cients and the
corresponding wall superheat were calculated using the Chen’s correlation. Experiments were
performed to Ž nd out how the thermal performance of the cooling module was affected by the
condenser size and the amount of charging  uid. Great emphasis was placed on the transient
characteristics of the cooling module. For an allowable temperature rise of 58°C on the surface of
the heater, the cooling module can handle a heat  ux of as much as 2.5 W/cm2 . No boiling
retardation was observed inside the cold plate, which resulted in smooth transition from the
transient state to the steady one. It was also found that the appropriate size of the condenser and the
adequate amount of charging liquid are crucial factors affecting the performance of a closed
two-phase thermosyphon device.

Switching systems in a broadband integrated services
digital network (B-ISDN ) will use the asynchronous
transfer mode (ATM ) and will have a throughput on
the order of terabits per second. Correspondingl y, the
heat  ux in a B-ISDN is one or two orders of mag-
nitude higher than in conventional systems, and will
reach 1 – 2 W/cm2 , which will necessitate new packag-
ing systems and ingenious cooling technology [1, 2].
The multichip module (MCM ) has been considered [ 3]
Address correspondenc e to Prof. Ho-Young Kwak, Mechanical Engi-
neering Department, Chung-Ang University, 221, Huksuk-Dong , Dongjak-
Ku, Seoul 156-756, Korea. E-mail: kwakhy@cau.ac.k r
an appropriate packaging design for B-ISDNs because
its high packaging density will decrease signal propa-
gation delay and reduce electromagnetic emission.
The direct immersion cooling module [4] has been
considered a promising method for such application
because it removes a large amount of heat effectively.
However, application of such a cooling method to
communication systems is not an easy task because of
difŽ culties in maintenance and reliability. As an al-
ternative, ingeneous air-cooled thermosyphon modules
[5, 6] and indirect liquid-coolin g thermosyphon s [7, 8]
have been proposed for cooling high-densit y electronic
packaging. However, it has been observed [9] that the

29
 thermosyphon cooling module, which has a horizontal
refrigerant path in the heat sink [5, 6], brings signiŽ cant
heat transfer crisis and consequent temperature rise due
to the retardation of boiling inception inside the tube at
a lower heat  ux of about 1 W/cm2 . On the other hand,
a thermosyphon action due to boiling of the refriger-
ant in a vertical channel completely eliminates the heat
transfer crisis problem [ 9].
A design procedure for the cold plate of a two-phase
thermosyphon cooling device to cool MCM modules
was studied analytically. A separate  ow model was
employed to predict the mass  ux and the pressure drop
in the channel of the cold plate [10]. The local and aver-
age convective boiling heat transfer coefŽ cients and the
Downloaded by [University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)] at 21:38 06 May 2014

corresponding wall superheats were calculated using

Chen’s correlation [ 11]. Thermosyphonic cooling mod-
ules, which have been designed based on the analysis,
were fabricated and tested to cool a multichip module
plugged into a planned packaging system. The cooling
module, which consists of a cold plate having a verti-
cal refrigerant path and an integrated plate condenser,
is essentially a separate type of closed thermosyphon .
Experiments were performed to Ž nd out how the ther-
mal performance of the cooling module was affected
by the condenser size and the amount of charging liq-
uid. Great emphasis was placed on the transient charac-
teristics of the cooling module. No boiling retardation
was observed inside the cold plate, which resulted in
smooth transition from the transient state to the steady
one. The measured values of the heat transfer coefŽ cient
are in good agreement with the mean values of calcu-
lated ones. It has also been found that appropriate size
of the condenser and an adequate amount of charging
liquid were crucial factors affecting the performance of
the closed two-phase thermosyphon device.
EXPERIMENTAL APPARATUS AND
PROCEDURES
A multichip module [3] has been proposed for im-
proving the performance of communication systems.
The high packaging density of an MCM will decrease
signal propagation delay as well as electromagnetic
emission. In this study, two 120 mm £ 100 mm £
3.5 mm aluminum-covered plate heaters were used to
simulate an MCM. The maximum allowable heat  ow
rate from this heater was about 345 W at the applied
voltage of 220 V. The corresponding maximum heat
 ux achieved was about 2.54 W/cm2 when one side was
insulated. The heaters were attached to the cold plate
by using Omega Therm-101, a thermal paste. R-11 was
chosen as a working  uid in the thermosyphon device.
A schematic of a thermosyphon cooling module
tested is shown in Figure 1. The cooling module con-
30 heat transfer engineering
Figure 1 Schematic design of the TSCMF and monitoring posi-
tions of temperature and pressure.
sists of a cold plate with Ž ns (called a CPF ) and a plate-
type integrated condenser (called a PIC ). Such a cooling
module is capable of cooling an array of chips twice
as large as the IBM module or two arrays of MCMs.
As shown in Figure 2a, eight microŽ ns were made on
the surface of the  ow channel in the cold plate. The
length, height from root to tip, and width of the Ž n are
150 mm, 7 mm, and 2.5 mm, respectively. The lateral
distance between adjacent Ž ns is about 9 mm. The effec-
tive heat transfer area in the cold plate is about 160 cm2 ,
and the residential volume for the refrigerant inside the
cold plate is about 256 cm3 . The condenser, shown in
Figure 2b, is made of an aluminum block whose di-
mensions are 55 mm £ 275 mm £ 100 mm so that  ow
channels for the vapor from the cold plate are close to the
condensing surface to minimize the thermal resistance
there. Eight horizontal channels for water were fabri-
cated in the block. The channel diameters are 8 mm for
water, with equal lengths of 10.0 cm for each channel.
The condensing surface area is about 168 cm2 and the
residential volume for the vapor inside the condenser
is about 257 cm3 . In addition to the cold plate (CPF )
and the plate-type condenser (PIC ) mentioned above,
another cold plate (called a CPFE ) and plate-type con-
denser (called a PICE ), which have larger residential
volume for the refrigerant or its vapor, were utilized.
Combinations of cold plates and condensers employed
in this experiment are shown in Table 1.
The coolant (water ) was circulated to the con-
denser by a constant-temperature-bat h circulator. The
water  ow rate to the condenser was Ž xed at about
vol. 22 no. 2 2001
 returning condensed liquid had different paths,  ood-
ing phenomena did not occur in such a separated-type
closed thermosyphon unit [5] which allows more heat
to be transported.
The temperatures of the cold plate and the condenser
were measured using 20 T-type thermocouples mounted
on the surfaces as shown in Figure 3. Acquisition of data
obtained from the T-type thermocouple s was done by
a Yokogawa recorder (HR-1300 ) connected to a PC.
The data collected from each thermocouple at 2-s in-
tervals over 2 min were averaged separately to make
a data set. Also, the vapor temperatures at the inlet of
condenser, Tc,in, in and at the outlet of the cold plate,
Te,out , and the liquid temperatures at the inlet of the cold
Downloaded by [University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)] at 21:38 06 May 2014

plate, Te,in, and at the outlet of the condenser, Tc,out ,

were measured by T-type thermocouples whose moni-
toring positions are shown in Figure 1. Acquisition of
data obtained from these thermocouples was done by a
Yokogawa recorder (LR-8100 ). At a heat  ux of about

Figure 2 Cold plate (a) and condenser (b) design for TSCMF
(units in mm).

5.58 liters/min. The temperature of the water at the inlet

to the condenser varied depending on the preset surface
temperature of the condenser. The internal space of the
cold plate was Ž lled with a working  uid. Charging of
the working  uid to the system was as follows; Ž rst
the system was evacuated up to 10 torr by a vacuum
pump and then the liquid was charged to the cold plate.
After the charge, the system pressure rises normally to
660 torr. The vapor generated at the cold plate  owed
to the condenser, where it was condensed by the cir-
culating water of a Ž xed  ow rate. The liquid then re-
turned to the evaporator by gravity. Since the vapor and

Table 1 Combinations of cold plates and condensers and their

residential volumes (inside volume of the connecting pipes is
about 80 cm3 )

Combinations of cold Residential volume of cold System

plate/condenser plate/condenser (cm3 ) volume (cm3 )

CPF/PIC 256/257 593

(A-type)
CPF/PICE 256/331 667
(B-type)
CPFE/PIC 350/257 687
(C-type)
CPFE/PICE 350/331 761
(D-type)
Figure 3 Thermocouple positions on cold plate (units in mm).
heat transfer engineering vol. 22 no. 2 2001 31
 1 W/cm2 , the velocity or the mass  ux of the vapor to the
condenser could be measured by monitoring the pres-
sure difference between the two positions 50 cm apart
from each other. A differential pressure transducer (Sen-
sotec, P30P ) was utilized in this measurement, and the
data were calibrated with a water Ž lled U-tube. With an
assumed surface roughness of 0.001 d, the mass  uxes
were estimated by using the Haaland and Hagen cor-
relation for the friction factor [12] and the measured
value of the pressure difference. The system pressure
monitored at the inlet of the condenser was measured
using a piezoelectric pressure transducer (Omega ).
For the microŽ nned channel, the increase in the contact
area between liquid and solid surface due to installatio n
of Ž ns was taken into account for the friction coefŽ cient.
For the two-phase multiplier, the Fridel correlation [13]
which is applicable to any  uid except when l l / l g >
1,000, was utilized.
With the assumption of uniform heat  ow to the cold
plate, the quality at an arbitrary point in the  ow passage
can be obtained by the energy balance equation. That
is,
dx q
= (5 )
dz Ghfg d

An empirical equation used to correlate void fraction

Downloaded by [University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)] at 21:38 06 May 2014

ANALYSIS OF COLD PLATE PERFORMANCE

data for round tubes [14] was employed in this study.
An analysis was done for the heat transfer perfor- ¡ ¢¡ 0.378
a = 1 + X tt0.8 (6 )
mance of a cold plate cooled by convective boiling of
R-11 in a  ow passage having smooth and microŽ nned
where X tt is the Martinelli parameter,
surfaces. The pressure drop in the  ow passage was cal-
culated using the separated  ow model [ 10]. The pres- ³ ´0.9³ ´0.5 ³ ´0.1
1¡ x q g l l
sure gradient to account for friction, acceleration, and X tt = (7 )
gravitation components for vertical channel is given by x q l l g

³ ´ A correct mass  ow rate may be obtained when the

dP 4k 2 d x2 (1 ¡ x )2
pressure drop in the  ow passage is equal to the hy-
¡ = +G +
dz d dz a q g (1 ¡ a )q l drostatic head. For the assumed mass  ux, G, one can
calculate the pressure drop in the  ow passage for a
+ [a q g + (1 ¡ a )q l ]g (1 ) given heat  ux. By an iteration procedure, one can Ž nd
G with given hydrostatic heads. For the  ow passage
The pressure gradient due to friction may be obtained with microŽ nned surface, Chen’s correlation with mod-
using the two-phase multiplier, U l . iŽ cation of the nucleate boiling contributio n by Ž ns was
³ ´ utilized [ 11]. This is
4k dP 2
= ¡ ¢ U l (2 ) ³ ´
d dz l AP + g 2 AF
h CB = h l F + h FZ S (8 )
AP + g AF
where ¡ (dp / dz )l is a single-phase frictional pressure
gradient calculated at a liquid mass  ux only, which is where
given by
³ ´ g = tanh (m H F ) / (m H F ) (9a )
dP 2C f G 2 (1 ¡ x )2
¡ = (3 )
dz l d q l and
s
For the friction coefŽ cient, the following correlations
2h CB
[12] was used: m = (9b )
kl t F
¡ 1/ 4
C f = 0.079Re, lo if Re, lo < 2 £ 104
(4 ) The single-phase liquid convective heat transfer coefŽ -
= 0.046Re, lo ¡ 1/ 5
if Re, lo > 2 £ 104 cient h l based on the total mass  ow rate was calculated
using the following McAdams correlation [15] rather
than that of Dittus and Boelter [16]:
where
³ ´0.8
Gd kl q l ¡ q g
Re, lo = h l = 0.023 Prl0.4 Re, 0.8
io x +1 (10 )
l l d q g
32 heat transfer engineering vol. 22 no. 2 2001
 The nucleate boiling heat transfer coefŽ cient h FZ
may be calculated from the Forster-Zuber equation [17],
which is
± !
kl0.79 C pl0.45 q 0.49
l 0.24 0.75
h FZ = 0.00122 0.5 0.29 0.24 0.24 D TSAT D PSAT
r l l h fg q g

(11 )

In the calculation of the nucleate boiling heat transfer

coefŽ cient h FZ , the heat transfer area increase due to Ž ns
was also taken into account in the same way to obtain
h l . Since h FZ depends on D TSAT , and g depend on h CB , Figure 4 Calculated mass  ux and exit quality depending on the
the local wall superheat and heat transfer coefŽ cient can heat  ux with or without microŽ ns in  ow channel.
Downloaded by [University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)] at 21:38 06 May 2014

be obtained by iteratively solving the following energy

balance equation with Eq. (8 ): Figure 4 that the cold plate unit with a smooth surface
operates at a little higher mass  ux level. The measured
q A b = h CB ( A P + g A F )D TSAT (12 ) and calculated values of the mass  uxes depending on
the heat  uxes applied are shown in Figure 5. Except for
For the calculations of the two-phase heat transfer the cases of lower heat  uxes, both results show a similar
coefŽ cient multiplier F and the nucleate boiling sup- trend: the mass  ux decreases as the heat  ux increases.
pression factor S, the curve-Ž t equations recommended A clear demarcation point in the mass  ux can be
by Collier [18] were used. These are seen at the heat  ux of 0.5 W/cm2 . Below a heat  ux
of 0.5 W/cm2 , pumping action due to the density gra-
1 dient of the liquid coolant occurs, so that the mass  ux
F = 1 for < 0.1 increases as the applied heat  ux increases. In fact, for-
X tt
mation of a couple of bubbles can only be seen at the
³ ´0.736 heat  ux of 0.5 W/cm2 , as shown later in Figure 15a.
1 1
= 2.35 + 0.213 for > 0.1 Once boiling occurs at a higher heat  ux, the thermosy-
X tt X tt
phonic action due to the boiling of the refrigerant in the
1 channel becomes signiŽ cant. In this regime, the pre-
S = (13 ) dicted value of the mass  ux with a two-phase  ow
1 + 2.56 £ 10 ¡ 6 Re1.17
TP model yields reasonable agreement with the measure-
(1 ¡ x )Gd ments. However, vapor trapped in the manometer line
Rel = (14 ) gave some difŽ culty to measuring the pressure drop in
l l the two-phase  ow regime, which may cause deviation
between the experimental and theoretical values.
where ReTP = Rel F 1.25 and the calculation of the pres-
sure drop and the heat transfer coefŽ cient were accom-
plished by dividing the length of the  ow channel in the
cold plate into about 500 elements of equal size. The lo-
cal pressure drop and the local heat transfer coefŽ cient
were calculated for each element. In turn, the local heat
transfer coefŽ cient was used to determine the local wall
superheat.
At a heat  ux level between 0.5 and 3.5 W/cm2 , the
values of the parameters such as mass  ux, exit qual-
ity, average heat transfer coefŽ cient, and base wall su-
perheat for two different cold plate units are shown in
Figures 4 and 6. The pressure head used in this cal-
culation was obtained by observation. The higher exit
quality for the cold plate with the microŽ nned channel
is a direct consequence of the lower mass  ux than that Figure 5 Calculated and observed mass  uxes depending on the
for the smooth surface-channel unit. It can be seen in heat  ux applied.
heat transfer engineering vol. 22 no. 2 2001 33
 Figure 8 Calculated and measured local heat transfer coefŽ cient
Figure 6 Calculated and measured average heat transfer coefŽ -
Downloaded by [University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)] at 21:38 06 May 2014

over the active length of the cold plate in smooth  ow channel at

cient depending on heat  uxes applied. The measured values were two different heat  uxes. The measured values for 1 W/cm2 (±) and
obtained from A-type (. ), C-type (j ), and D-type (² ) cooling 2.5 W/cm2 (² ) were obtained from the A-type cooling module.
modules.

heat measured in the various cooling modules of types

The measured and calculated values of the average
A, C, and D as denoted by . , j , and ² , respectively, have
heat transfer coefŽ cients depending on the heat  uxes
a similar trend as the calculated results with the smooth
applied for the microŽ nned channel are shown in
surface approximation . Note that inside wall tempera-
Figure 6. The measured data, denoted by . , j , ² , are the
tures of the cold plate were calculated from the mea-
cases for employing the cooling module types A, C, and
sured wall temperature of the cold plate by employing
D as described in Table 1, respectively. The measured
the one-dimensional , steady-state conduction equation.
mean heat transfer coefŽ cients, which vary linearly with
Figure 8 shows the calculated variation of the local
the applied heat  uxes, have a similar trend as the cal-
heat transfer coefŽ cient with downstream position for
culated values for the smooth surface rather than the
the smooth channel at two different heat  uxes. The
microŽ nned one. It turns out that the microŽ nned chan-
variation of the base wall superheat with downstream
nel results in only a small increase in the heat transfer
location for smooth cold plate is shown in Figure 9. The
area, consequently slight enhancement in the heat trans-
heat transfer coefŽ cients and the wall superheat values
fer coefŽ cients. This may be because boiling does not
measured at three different locations along the channel
occur on most of the surface area of the Ž ns.
are also shown in Figures 8 and 9, respectively. Actu-
The measured and calculated values of the mean val-
ally, the values were obtained by taking the average of
ues of the bare wall superheat to the cold plate for the
the values measured at two lateral positions shown in
microŽ nned channel unit are plotted as a function of the
applied heat  uxes in Figure 7. Again, the wall super-

Figure 9 Calculated and measured local wall superheat over the

Figure 7 Calculated and measured average wall superheats de- active length of the cold plate in smooth  ow channel at two different
pending on heat  uxes applied. The measured values were obtained heat  uxes. The measured values for 1 W/cm2 (±) and 2.5 W/cm2
from A-type (. ), C-type (j ), and D-type (² ) cooling modules. (² ) were obtained from the A-type cooling module.

34 heattransfer engineering vol. 22 no. 2 2001

 Figure 3. At the lower heat  ux of 1 W/cm2 , the dif-
ference between measured and calculated values in the
base wall superheats and the corresponding heat trans-
fer coefŽ cients is rather large at the bottom of the chan-
nel. This is because boiling hardly occurs in the lower
part of channel at the heat  ux of 1 W/cm2 , as will be
clearly seen in Figure 15b. On the other hand, one can
predict the wall superheats and the heat transfer coef-
Ž cients correspondingly in the upper part of the chan-
nel reasonably when the higher heat  ux of 2.5 W/cm2
is applied. The pumping action due to bubbles in the
channel may enhance the heat transfer coefŽ cients more
than the ones predicted by Chen’s correlation. The wall
superheats and the corresponding heat transfer coefŽ -
Downloaded by [University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)] at 21:38 06 May 2014

cients measured at the middle of the channel are in good

agreement with these calculated with the smooth sur-
face approximation .
The relative error in the system pressure measure-
ment is about §0.25%, which yields an error of 0.08° C
in the measurement of the saturated temperatures. The
uncertainties in the temperature measurements are less
than §0.1° C, so the calculated magnitudes of the wall
superheat are accurate within §1.0%. Since the uncer-
tainties in the heat  ux measurements are approximately
§3.0%, the uncertainty in the measurement of heat
transfer coefŽ cient was calculated to be within §4.0%.
Figure 10 (a)Transient characteristics for D-type cooling module
at the heat  ux of 1.0 W/cm2 with R-11 as coolant. (b) Temperature
trend at various positions on evaporator of D-type cooling module
EXPERIMENTS FOR PERFORMANCE OF at the heat  ux of 1.0 W/cm2 with R-11 as coolant. The Ž ll ratio of
COOLING MODULE the working  uid was 0.46.

Experiments for the designed cooling module were 0.73 for the A-type cooling module, the case shown in
performed without insulation of the condensing part, Figure 11, delays the steady-state operation of the cool-
condenser wall, or tube connecting the condenser with ing module. This is also true for the oversizing con-
an evaporator, in order to simulate more accurately the denser, which is the B-type module shown later, in
real conditions of electronic chip cooling. Experiments Figure 13. For both cases, the system experiences high
were performed to Ž nd out how the thermal perfor- pressure. Especially, as the system pressure increases
mance of the designed cooling module was affected by to as high as 2.5 bar, so that operation of the cooling
the condenser size and the amount of charging liquid. module was stopped for protection in the case of the
Great emphasis was put on the transient characteristics overcharging case. This is because excess cooling at the
of the cooling module, which has only been studied
previously by Nam et al. [9, 19].
The performance of the D-type cooling module at
the heat  ux of 1.0 W/cm2 is shown in Figure 10. It
is shown by these results that the temperature of the
simulated chip reaches steady state within 10 – 15 min.
Smooth transition to the steady state without showing
the heat transfer crisis can also be seen. The transient
characteristics of the cooling modules are closely re-
lated to the boiling inception inside the cold plate. The
temperature overshoot due to the retardation of boiling
inception in the cold plate, which may occur in horizon-
tal tubes in the heat sink [9], could damage the electronic Figure 11 Transient characteristics for A-type cooling module
chips. Overcharging of the coolant with a Ž ll ratio of with Ž ll ratio of coolant 0.73 at the heat  ux of 2.5 W/cm2 .
heat transfer engineering vol. 22 no. 2 2001 35
 condenser lowered the temperature of the condensate,
which induced difŽ culty in boiling inception inside the
cold plate. The Ž ll ratio of coolant, f v , is deŽ ned as
the ratio of the charged coolant volume to the system
volume of the cooling module.
The vapor does not experience notable temperature
variation in the tube from the cold plate to the con-
denser, which indicates that the vapor transport to the
condenser is achieved adiabatically. On the other hand,
the condensing  uid receives much heat from an ambi-
ent, so the  uid temperature at the inlet of the cold plate
(15° C ) is higher than that at the outlet of the condenser
(10° C ). The system pressure increases steadily to reach
1 bar at the steady-state condition. As can be seen in
Downloaded by [University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)] at 21:38 06 May 2014
Figure 10b, the wall superheat difference between the
bottom and top positions is about 4.6° C. This value is
higher than the calculated one, which is about 2°C, as
shown in Figure 9. The maximum temperature achieved
on the surface of the chips was found to be less than
35° C at the heat  ux of 1 W/cm2 .
The transient characteristics of the D-type cooling
module at 2.5 W/cm2 are shown in Figure 12. At such a
Figure 12 (a)Transient characteristics for D-type cooling module
at the heat  ux of 2.5 W/cm2 with R-11 as coolant. (b) Temperature
trend at various positions on evaporator of D-type cooling module
at the heat  ux of 2.5 W/cm2 with R-11 as coolant. The Ž ll ratio of
the working  uid was 0.55.
36 heat transfer engineering
Figure 13 Average temperature of the cold plate and system pres-
sure depending on Ž ll ratio of coolant at the heat  ux of 2.0 W/cm2
for various types of cooling modules tested.
high heat  ux level, the average temperature of the cold
plate turned out to be 52.5° C, and the base wall super-
heat varied from 6.4 to 11.5° C along with upstream po-
sition. These observed values are also in agreement with
the calculated ones, which varied from 6.7 to 13.0° C as
shown in Figure 9. Surprisingly, the wall superheat at
bottom of the cold plate, Tc8 – Tc9, has the lowest value,
while the wall superheat at the position of Tc7 is the
highest. At this high heat  ux level, the system pressure
reaches 1.60 bar at a steady state as shown Figure 12a, so
that the saturation temperature becomes 37.3° C. How-
ever, the base wall superheat differences at the majority
of the cold plate are in the range of 4°C. This is favor-
able for cooling of electronics because the temperature
difference on the one unit of the chip is so small.
Adequate charging coolant turns out to be an im-
portant factor affecting the performance of the cooling
modules. For various types of thermosyphon devices
employed, the average temperature of the cold plate and
the system pressure, depending on the Ž ll ratio of the
coolant to the system volume, are shown in Figure 13.
Figure 14 Average temperature of cold plate and system pressure
depending on heat  ux for C-type cooling module with working
 uids of R-11 and HCFC-123.
vol. 22 no. 2 2001
Downloaded by [University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)] at 21:38 06 May 2014
Figure 15 Convective boiling in the cold plate  ow channel with microŽ ns at the heat  ux of (a) 0.5 W/cm2 , (b) 1 W/cm2 , and
(c) 2.5 W/cm2 .
Higher Ž ll ratios, over 50%, the C-type cooling mod-
ule, yields high system pressure. Charging of the coolant
with 90 – 110% of the residential volume of the cold plate
produces the best performance among the devices.
Instead of the working  uid of R11, HCFC-123,
an alternative to refrigerant R11, was also tested. The
average temperature and the system pressure with
HCFC-123 for the C-type module are shown in
Figure 14. Similar results for the transient character-
istics and the system performance were also obtained
by using this coolant. However, the cooling module de-
veloped did not work with a coolant of FC-72 under
the conditions tested. This may be due to the relatively
higher boiling point of FC-72. It is better to use a work-
ing  uid whose boiling point is close to R11 with the
cooling module.
A bit of  uctuation in the temperature of the cold
plate near the outlet (Tc1) was observed. This phe-
nomenon is due to the change of dry patched area at
this position from time to time, which was conŽ rmed
by visualization of the cold plate. Convective boiling
in the conŽ ned channel with microŽ ns is shown in
Figure 15. At the heat  ux of 1 W/cm2 , bubble forma-
tion can only be seen in the upper part of the channel,
so two-phase  ow approximation is no longer valid in
the lower part of the channel, which is conŽ rmed in
Figures 7 and 8. Below the heat  ux of 0.5 W/cm2 , for-
heat transfer engineering
mation of a couple of bubbles occurs on the surface of
the cold plate. With the heat  ux of 2.5 W/cm2 , the dry
patched area at the top of the channel is clearly seen
in this Ž gure, which conŽ rms that the maximum heat
removed with this cooling module is about 2.5 W/cm2 .
Such a heat load, which can be handled by the cooling
module developed, is much higher than the maximum
heat  ux of 1.6 W/cm2 achieved by air-cooled closed
thermosyphon devices [5]. It has been observed that
the temperature  uctuation ampliŽ ed more when one
charged liquid to the cold plate with a small amount,
which is about 90% of the inner space of the cold plate. It
was also found that the time required to reach the steady
state is longer and the system’s performance is unstable
when one uses an oversized condenser, the B-type cool-
ing module case. Such results indicate that appropriate
size of condenser is one of the crucial factors affecting
the system’s performance.
CONCLUSIONS
Two-phase thermosyphon cooling modules with mi-
croŽ ns in the channel of cold plate (TSCMF ) were an-
alyzed and tested to cool MCMs. The cooling mod-
ule consists of a cold plate and a plate-type integrated
condenser. Test results have revealed that the cooling
vol. 22 no. 2 2001 37
 module showed smooth transition from transient to U two-phase multiplie r used in Eq. (2 )
steady state without heat transfer crisis at any heat  ux r surface tension, N/m
level. The wall superheats on the cold plate were in the k shear stress, N/m
range of 5 – 12° C at the heat  ux level of 2.5 W/cm2 ,
which is also in close agreement with analytical results Subscripts
for the smooth  ow channel of the cold plate. The ap-
propriate size of condenser and an adequate amount of CB convective boiling
charging liquid to the system were found to be crucial FC forced convection
factors affecting the system’s performance. FZ Forster-Zuber
g vapor properties or corresponding to vapor  ow
NOMENCLATURE alone in the channel
l liquid properties or corresponding to liquid
Ab base area of cold plate channel segment, m2  ow alone in the channel
AF surface area of Ž ns in channel segment, m2 lo liquid properties evaluated at the total mass
Downloaded by [University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)] at 21:38 06 May 2014

Ap prime surface area of channel section includ-  ux

ing base area of Ž ns, m2 TP two-phase  ow
Cf friction factor given in Eq. (4 )
Cp speciŽ c heat at constant pressure, kJ/kg K REFERENCES
d hydraulic diameter based on wetted perimeter
used in Eq. (4 ), m [1] Gotoh, K., Broad-Band ISDN/Developing Visual Communi-
F macroscopic heat transfer coefŽ cient multi- cation for the Future, 9th Int. Display Research Conf., pp. 2 – 5,
plier used in Eq. (13 ) 1989.
fv Ž ll ratio of coolant [2] Toda, I., Innovation in Telecommunication Towards the 21st
Century, NTT Review, vol. 1, pp. 160 – 164, 1990.
g gravitational constant, m/s2 [3] Yamanaka, N., Kikuchi, S., Kon, T., and Ohsaki, T., Multichip
G mass  ux, kg/m2 s 1.8Gb/s High Speed Space-Division Switching Module Using
HF dimension of Ž ns from root to tip, m Copper Polymide Multilayer Substrate, 40th ECTC, Las Vegas,
h heat transfer coefŽ cient, W/m2 K NV, pp. 562 – 570, 1990.
h fg latent heat of vaporization, kJ/kg [4] Bar-Cohen, A., and Schweitzer, H., Thermosyphon Boiling in
Vertical Channels, J. Heat Transfer, vol. 107, pp. 772– 778,
kl  uid thermal conductivit y, W/m K
1980.
L effective length of the cold plate, m [5] Kishimoto, T., and Harada, A., Two-Phase Thermosyphon
P pressure, N/m2 Cooling for Telecom-multichip Modules, in Advances in Elec-
Prl liquid Prandtl number used in Eq. (10 ) tronic Packaging (ASME), pp. 135 – 141, 1992.
D PSAT saturation pressure difference corresponding [6] Budelman, S. A., High EfŽ ciency Heat Removal System for
to D T SAT used in Eq. (11 ) Electric Devices and the Like, U.S. Patent, 5,394,936, 1995.
[7] Ashiwake, N., Nakajima, T., Sasaki, S., Ohsone, Y., Harada,
q surface heat  ux to base area of cold plate, T., Iino, T., Kasai, K., and Idei, A., Apparatus for Cooling
W/cm2 Semiconductor Device and Computer Having the Same, U.S.
Re Reynolds number Patent 5,406,807, 1995.
S nucleate boiling suppression factor used in [8] Pioro, I., Small Scale Two-phase Loop Thermosyphons for
Eq. (13 ) Cooling Telecommunication, Proc. 10th, Int. Heat Pipe Conf.,
Stuttgart, Germany, 1997.
tF Ž n thickness, m
[9] Choi, S., Nam, S., Kim, J., and Kwak, H., Thermal Character-
TW wall temperature of prime surface (base wall ) istics of Two Phase Thermosyphon Cooling Module for Multi-
of channel, K chip Device, in Advances in Energy EfŽ ciency, Heat/Mass
TSAT saturation temperature of coolant, K Transfer Enhancement (ASME), pp. 33– 43, 1996. Also in ETRI
D TSAT wall superheat ( = TW ¡ TSAT ), K J., vol. 20, pp. 284– 300, 1998.
x mass quality [10] Chisholm, D., Two-Phase Flow in Pipelines and Heat Ex-
changers, George Godwin, London, 1983.
X tt Martinelli parameter used in Eq. (7 ) [11] Carey, V. P., Mandrusiak, G. D., and Roddy, T., Analysis of
z downstream (vertical ) coordinate measured the Heat Transfer Performance of Offset Strip Fin Geometries
from inlet edge of active cold plate surface, in a Cold Plate Operating in a Two-Phase Thermosyphon, in
m Cooling Technology for Electronic Equipment, pp. 95– 112,
a vapor void fraction Hemisphere, New York, 1988.
[12] White, F. M., Fluid Mechanics, 3d ed., McGraw-Hill,
d gap size in the cold plate channel, m
New York, 1994.
g Ž n efŽ ciency [13] Freidel, L., Improve Friction Pressure Drop Correlation for
l dynamic viscosity, N s/m2 Horizontal and Vertical Two-Phase Flow, European Two-
q density, kg/m3 Phase Flow Group Meeting, Italy, 1979.
38 heat transfer engineering vol. 22 no. 2 2001
 [14] Wallis, G. B., One-Dimensional Two-Phase Flow, McGraw-
Hill, New York, 1969.
[15] Rohsenow, W. M., and Choi, H., Heat, Mass and Momentum
Transfer, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1961.
[16] Incropera, F. P., and Dewitt, D. P., Introduction to Heat Trans-
fer, Wiley, New York, 1985.
[17] Forster, H. K., and Zuber, N., Dynamics of Vapor Bubble and
Boiling Heat Transfer, AIChE J., vol. 1, pp. 531 – 535, 1995.
[18] Collier, J. G., Forced Convective Boiling, in Two Phase Flow
and Heat Transfer in the Power and Process Industries, chap. 8,
Hemisphere, New York, 1981.
[19] Nam, S., Kwak, H., and Kim, J., Multichip Module Cooling
Apparatus, U.S. Patent 5,859,763, 1999.
Min-Kyun Na received B.S. and M.S. degrees in
Mechanical Engineering from Chung-Ang Uni-
Downloaded by [University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)] at 21:38 06 May 2014
versity, Korea, in 1997 and 1999, respectively.
Since 1999 he has been with the Research & De-
velopment Center, Halla Climate Control Coop-
eration, Taejon, Korea, where he is now a Re-
searcher. His research interests are noise and vi-
bration problems in cooling devices for cars.
Jin-Seok Jeon received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D.
degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Chung-
Aug University, Korea, in 1987, 1989, and 2000,
respectivel y. Since 1992 he has been with the Re-
search & Developmen t Center, Korea Gas Corpo-
ration, Ansan, Korea, where he is now a Senior
Researcher. His research interests are in sono-
luminescence phenomena , boiling heat transfer,
heat transfer engineering
electronic equipment cooling and fuel cell power systems. He is a member
of KSME.
Ho-Young Kwak received a B.S. degree in
Physics from Seoul National University in 1971
and an M.A. in Plasma Physics and a Ph.D. in
Mechanical Engineering from the University of
Texas at Austin. USA, in 1977 and 1981, respec-
tively. He joined the Mechanical Engineering fac-
ulty, Chung-Ang University, Korea in 1981, and
is currently a Professor there. He served as Dean
of the College of Engineering from February 1997 to February 1999. His
research interests are in bubble nucleation, bubble dynamics, sonolumines-
cence phenomena , boiling heat transfer, electronic equipment cooling, and
exergoeconomi c analysis for thermal systems. He is a member of KSME,
ASME, KPS, APS, and ASA.
Sang-Sig Nam received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D.
degrees in Electronic Engineering from Dankook
University, Seoul, Korea, in 1981, 1983, and 1999,
respectively. He joined ETRI in 1985, where was
involved in developing the TDX-1A, 1B, and
TDX-10 switching systems. Since 1994 he has
participated in the ATM switching system devel-
opment project, and he is now a Project Leader.
His research interests are signal integrity engineering, system packing, and
modeling and simulation of high-speed interconnection . He is a member of
the KITE, KICS, and KEES of Korea.
vol. 22 no. 2 2001 39