Thermal and Manufacturing Design Considerations for Silicon-Based Embedded Microchannel-Three-Dimensional Manifold Coolers—Part 2: Parametric Study of EMMCs for High Heat Flux (∼1 kW/cm2) Power Electronics Cooling

Abstract

Thermal management of power electronics modules is one of the limiting factors in the peak power capability of the traction inverter system and overall efficiency of the e-drive. Liquid cooling using embedded microchannels with a three-dimensional (3D)-manifold cooler (EMMC) is a promising technology capable of removing heat fluxes of >1 kW/cm2 at tens of kPa pressure drop. In this work, we utilize computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to conduct a parametric study of selected EMMC designs to improve the thermofluidic performance for a 5 mm × 5 mm heated area with the applied heat flux of 800 W/cm2 using single-phase water as working fluid at inlet temperature of 25 °C. We implemented strategies such as: (i) symmetric distribution of manifold inlet/outlet conduits, (ii) reducing the thickness of cold-plate (CP) substrate, and (iii) increasing fluid–solid interfacial area in CP microchannels, which resulted in a reduction in thermal resistance from 0.1 for baseline design to 0.04 cm2 K/W, while the pressure drop increased from 8 to 37 kPa.