Cooling apparatus and method
AssigneeABB Schweiz AG
InventorsBruno Agostini, Daniele Torresin, Francesco Agostini, Gernot Riedel, Mathiew Habert
Life of this patent
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Abstract
This invention relates to a cooling apparatus comprising a base plate, an evaporator and a condenser. In order to obtain a simple and efficient cooling apparatus the evaporator is a porous aluminum evaporator having a capillary structure with pores and a plurality of larger sized evaporator channels extending through the evaporator between a second end and the first end of the evaporator. A compensation chamber extending along a second surface of the evaporator receives first fluid from the condenser such that pores opening up into the second surface of the evaporator are provided with first fluid.
Claims20
A cooling apparatus comprising:
- a base plate for receiving a heat load from one or more electric components,
- an evaporator with a first surface in thermal contact with a surface of the base plate for transferring said heat load into a first fluid in the evaporator in an operating state of the cooling apparatus, wherein the evaporator comprises a porous structure having capillary pores,
- a condenser for receiving first fluid from a first end of the evaporator and for dissipating heat from the first fluid, and
- a compensation chamber extending along a second surface of the evaporator, which is an opposite surface to the first surface, the compensation chamber receiving first fluid from the condenser such that pores opening up into the second surface of the evaporator are provided with first fluid,
- wherein the cooling apparatus is a capillary loop heat pipe,
- wherein the porous structure of the evaporator is a porous aluminum structure having capillary pores and larger sized evaporator channels extending through the evaporator between a second end and the first end of the evaporator, and
- wherein the evaporator channels are embedded in the evaporator at a location between the first surface and the second surface and arranged in more than one layer such that each layer includes a plurality of evaporator channels.
A method for manufacturing a cooling apparatus, the method comprises:
- producing an evaporator having a capillary porous structure with pores and a plurality of larger sized evaporator channels embedded in the evaporator at a location between a first surface and a second surface of the evaporator and arranged in more than one layer such that each layer includes a plurality of evaporator channels extending through the evaporator between a second end and a first end of the evaporator by utilizing a 3D printer.
- providing a compensation chamber to extend along a second surface of the evaporator for supplying first fluid to the evaporator via pores opening up into the second surface, and
- providing fluid paths from said evaporator and said compensation chamber to a first end and respectively second end of a condenser for passing evaporated first fluid from the evaporator to the condenser and for passing condensed first fluid from the condenser to the compensation chamber in an operating state of the cooling apparatus.
(canceled)
The cooling apparatus according to 19, wherein the size of the pores varies between the first end of the evaporator and the second end of the evaporator.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.