Cooling electronic devices in a data center
AssigneeGoogle Inc.
InventorsSoheil Farshchian, Madhu Krishnan Iyengar
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A server rack thermosiphon system includes a plurality of evaporators, each evaporator including a thermal interface for one or more heat-generating server rack devices; at least one condenser mounted to an external structure of a server rack, the condenser including a fluid-cooled heat transfer module; a liquid conduit that fluidly couples each of the evaporators to the condenser to deliver a liquid phase of a working fluid from the condenser to the evaporators; and a vapor conduit that fluidly couples each of the evaporators to the condenser to deliver a mixed phase of the working fluid from the evaporators to the condenser.
Claims20
A data center server rack system, comprising:
- a server rack that supports a plurality of data center electronic devices mounted on a plurality of server board assemblies within a volume of a housing of the server rack;
- a plurality of evaporator modules positioned in the housing and in thermal communication with the plurality of data center electronic devices;
- a condenser that comprises a heat exchanger in fluid communication with the plurality of evaporator modules and mounted to the housing;
- a fluid coolant that circulates through the plurality of evaporator modules to receive heat from the plurality of data center electronic devices such that at least a portion of the fluid coolant changes to a vapor phase that is circulated to the heat exchanger of the condenser to change into a liquid phase of the fluid coolant;
- and
- a plurality of shells, each shell comprising a volume that encloses a particular server board assembly of the plurality of server board assemblies and is fluidly isolated from the fluid coolant that circulates through at least one of the plurality of evaporator modules by the shell, the shell further comprising an exterior surface that is in fluid contact with the fluid coolant.
A method for cooling a plurality of data center electronic devices, comprising:
- circulating a liquid phase of a fluid coolant through a plurality of evaporator modules that are positioned in a volume of a housing of a server rack that supports the plurality of data center electronic devices mounted on a plurality of server board assemblies within the volume of the housing, a particular server board assembly enclosed in a volume of a shell that comprises an exterior surface in fluid contact with the fluid coolant;
- fluidly isolating the data center electronic devices mounted on the particular server board from the fluid coolant by the shell;
- transferring heat from the plurality of data center electronic devices, through the shell, to the liquid phase of the fluid coolant circulating within the plurality of evaporator modules;
- vaporizing, with the transferred heat, at least a portion of the liquid phase of the fluid coolant to a vapor phase of the fluid coolant;
- circulating the vapor phase of the fluid coolant from the plurality of evaporator modules to a condenser that comprises a heat exchanger mounted to the housing;
- and
- condensing, with the heat exchanger, the vapor phase of the fluid coolant to a liquid phase of the fluid coolant.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.