Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.

Purdue Research Foundation

Srivathsan Sudhakar

Shailesh N Joshi

Feng Zhou

Ercan Mehment Dede

Paul Timothy Fanson

A cooling system that includes an expandable vapor chamber having a condenser side opposite an evaporator side, a condenser side wick coupled to a condenser side wall, an evaporator side wick coupled to an evaporator side wall, and a vapor core positioned between the evaporator side wick and the condenser side wick. The cooling system also includes a vapor pressure sensor communicatively coupled to a controller and a bellow actuator disposed in the vapor core and communicatively coupled to the controller. The bellow actuator is expandable based on a vapor pressure measurement of the vapor pressure sensor.

Cooling systems comprising passively and actively expandable vapor chambers for cooling power semiconductor devices

Embodiments described herein disclose a vapor chamber including a thermally-conductive evaporator wall, a thermally-conductive condenser wall and a volume therebetween defining a vapor core for transporting a vapor of a working fluid from the evaporator wall to the condenser wall. The outer surfaces of the evaporator wall and the condenser wall are configured to be in thermal contact with a plurality of heat sources and a heat sink respectively. The vapor chamber further includes a porous wick structure for holding and pumping the working fluid towards the plurality of heat sources. The wick structure comprises an evaporator-feeding wick having an inner surface in thermal contact with an inner surface of the evaporator wall. The evaporator-feeding wick comprises a first region having a higher permeability than at least a second region to form a permeability gradient, such that the working fluid has a uniform flow to the plurality of heat sources.

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West Lafayette, IN, United States of America

Srivathsan Sudhakar