External cooling unit design for a data center with two phase fluid thermal loops
AssigneeBaidu USA LLC
InventorTianyi Gao
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A cooling system includes an ingress port to receive refrigerant in a vapor form from an evaporator, an egress port to return refrigerant in a liquid form back to the evaporator, a condenser coupled to the ingress port and the egress port, and a compressor coupled to the ingress port and the condenser. When the cooling system operates in a first mode, the condenser is configured to receive and condense the refrigerant from the vapor form into the liquid form and to return the refrigerant in the liquid form to the regress port. When the cooling system operates in a second mode, the compressor is configured to compress the refrigerant in the vapor form and to supply the compressed refrigerant to the condenser to be condensed therein.
Claims20
A cooling system, comprising:
- an ingress port to receive refrigerant in a vapor form from an evaporator;
- an egress port to return refrigerant in a liquid form back to the evaporator;
- a condenser coupled to the ingress port and the egress port and located at a higher elevation than the evaporator, wherein the refrigerant is driven by gravity to flow down from the condenser to the evaporator;
- and
- a compressor coupled to the ingress port and the condenser,
- a receiver having an input connected to an output of the condenser,
- an expansion valve directly connected to an output of the receiver, and
- a two-way valve connected across the expansion valve, wherein two-way valve is open in a first mode and closed in a second mode,
- wherein the cooling system is configured to have two operating modes including the first mode and the second mode based on an ambient condition, wherein the condenser is configured to receive and condense the refrigerant from the vapor form into the liquid form and to return the refrigerant in the liquid form to the egress port, without using a compressor, in response to the cooling system operating in the first mode, and
- wherein the compressor is configured to compress the refrigerant in the vapor form and to supply the compressed refrigerant to the condenser to be condensed therein in response to the cooling system operating in the second mode.
A data center system, comprising:
- a plurality of electronic racks, each electronic rack includes a plurality of server arranged in a stack, each server including one or more processors each being attached to a cold plate;
- and
- a cooling unit coupled to the cold plates of the electronic racks to provide liquid cooling to the processors, wherein the cooling unit comprises
- an ingress port to receive refrigerant in a vapor form from at least one of the electronic racks,
- an egress port to return refrigerant in a liquid form back to the electronic racks,
- a condenser coupled to the ingress port and the egress port and located at a higher elevation than the electronic racks, wherein the refrigerant is driven by gravity to flow down from the condenser to the electronic racks, and
- a compressor coupled to the ingress port and the condenser,
- a receiver having an input connected to an output of the condenser,
- an expansion valve directly connected to an output of the receiver, and
- a two-way valve connected across the expansion valve, wherein two-way valve is open in a first mode and closed in a second mode,
- wherein the cooling system is configured to have two operating modes including a first mode and a second mode based on an ambient condition, wherein the condenser is configured to receive and condense the refrigerant from the vapor form into the liquid form and to return the refrigerant in the liquid form to the egress port, without using a compressor, in response to the cooling system operating in the first mode, and
- wherein the compressor is configured to compress the refrigerant in the vapor form and to supply the compressed refrigerant to the condenser to be condensed therein in response to the cooling system operating in the second mode.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.