Modular, two-phase cooling systems

Abstract

Active two-phase cooling systems incorporate a cooling medium that changes phase as it absorbs heat dissipated by a heat source and a pump or a compressor that urges the cooling medium through a cooling loop. Operation of some heat sources, e.g., electronic devices, can improve if maintained at a substantially uniform operating temperature. A cooling medium can enter a node for cooling such a heat source at or near a saturation state and can exhaust from the node as a saturated mixture, providing a substantially uniform temperature across the node while taking advantage of the cooling medium's relatively high latent-heat of phase-change to provide a high rate of cooling to the heat source. Although counterintuitive, a cooling loop can pre-heat a sub-cooled flow of the cooling medium to provide the medium to the node in a saturated state. Such pre-heating can be achieved by the saturated mixture of the cooling medium after exhausting from the node.