High Performance Loop Heat Pipe With Flat Evaporator for Energy-Saving Cooling Systems of Supercomputers

Abstract

Two high performance loop heat pipes (LHPs) are developed for direct cooling of the chips in supercomputer. The two LHPs using flat evaporator are: one called water-cooling LHP and another one called air-cooling LHP. The working fluid of LHP is ammonia. The water-cooling LHP can work well at a heat load up to 663 W and air-cooling LHP can work well at a heat load up to 513 W. The two LHPs applying to the real computer servers are realized and tested. The server test results with water-cooling LHP have shown that the operating temperature of central processing units (CPUs) can be controlled to about 67 °C to ensure the reliable operating and acceptable level for electronic chips, even at condenser-cooling water temperature of 40 °C with low water flowrate of 0.055 m3/h. The server test results with air-cooling LHP have shown that the operating temperature of CPUs can be controlled to about 51 °C even at condenser-cooling wind temperature of 30 °C with wind flowrate of 41.88 m3/h.