Combined air and refrigeration cooling for computer systems
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsGregory M. Chrysler, Richard C. Chu, Gary F. Goth, Robert E. Simons
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A cabinet with air inlet and exhaust openings includes one or more air-moving devices for the air cooling of circuit cards contained within the cabinet. The circuit cards are insertable into a board (back plane) which also contains an electronic circuit module which is cooled by at least one refrigeration system which may also be disposed within a portion of the cabinet. In one embodiment, a portion of the exhaust air stream is used to also cool a condenser portion of the refrigeration system. The refrigeration system is preferably a dual/redundant system with two distinct coolant loops passing through a single cold plate in contact with the circuit module.
Claims5
A redundantly cooled electronic system comprising:
- a cabinet having an air intake opening and an air exhaust opening;
- a planar circuit board disposed within said cabinet;
- an electronic module disposed on said planar circuit board;
- an air moving mechanism for moving air, from said air intake opening, to said air exhaust opening, past said electronic module;
- a cold plate in thermal contact with said electronic module, said cold plate having first and second passages therein, said passages being thermally connected to each other, with each passage also being flow wise isolated from the other passage;
- a first refrigeration system for supplying a flow of cooling fluid through said first passage in said cold plate;
- and
- a second refrigeration system for supplying a flow of cooling fluid through said second passage in said cold plate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.