Evaporatively cooled thermosiphon

Abstract

A thermosiphon cooling assembly cools an electronic device with a first refrigerant disposed in the lower boiling chamber of a housing for liquid-to-vapor transformation and a second refrigerant disposed in an upper evaporating chamber of a housing for liquid-to-vapor transformation. The partition separating the lower boiling chamber of the housing from the upper evaporating chamber of the housing creates a series of vapor chambers within the lower boiling portion for condensing vapor boiled off the first refrigerant. The upper evaporating chamber contains a series of refrigerant pockets interleaved vertically with the vapor chambers to increase the surface area for heat transfer between the refrigerant vapor and the second refrigerant for absorbing heat by the second refrigerant for liquid-to-vapor transformation.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The subject invention relates to a thermosiphon cooling assembly for cooling an electronic device. [0003] 2. Description of the Prior Art [0004] The operating speed of computers is constantly being improved to create faster and faster computers. With this, comes increased heat generation and a need to effectively dissipate that heat. [0005] Heat exchangers and heat sink assemblies have been used that apply natural or forced convection cooling methods to dissipate heat from electronic devices that are highly concentrated heat sources such as microprocessors and computer chips. These heat exchangers typically use air to directly remove heat from the electronic devices; however air has a relatively low heat capacity. Thus, liquid-cooled units called LCUs employing a cold plate in conjunction with high heat capacity fluids have been used to remove heat from these types of heat sources. Although LCUs are satisfactory for...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012] The present invention utilizes the series of vapor chambers in the lower boiling portion of the housing interleaved with the series of refrigerant pockets in the upper evaporating portion of the housing to increase the surface area between the lower boiling portion of the housing and the upper evaporating portion of the housing to enhance heat transfer between the lower and upper portions of the housing. The series of vapor chambers and refrigerant pockets increases the rate of heat transfer providing for smaller TCUs that more effectively dissipate heat from an electronic device.

Problems solved by technology

These heat exchangers typically use air to directly remove heat from the electronic devices; however air has a relatively low heat capacity.

Additionally, with the decreasing size of computers and the increasing portability, new challenges have been presented regarding the ability of cooling units to effectively dissipate heat.

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