ACoolTPS - Advanced Cooling of high power microsystems using Two-Phase Flows Systems in complex geometries
Cooling of electronics is a challenging subject due to the fast growth
of computer processing capacity. Cooling of datacenters is estimated to
have an annual electricity cost of 1.4 billion dollars in the USA and
over 3 billion dollars worldwide. Currently, pure air/water cooling is
the most widely used means for thermal regulation of datacenters, which
represents around 45% of the total energy consumed in a datacenter.
However, the energy efficiency of these methods is very low. Therefore,
improvements are essential to ensure faster processors with sustainable
energy management.
Phase-change cooling devices directly over processor
chips using microchannels offer promise to reduce such a demanding
energy consumption. These are light-weight and hence can be used to cool
electronics on earth and in space This is because as liquids evaporate
they remove more heat than non-vaporising liquids. However, phase-change
liquids pose major design challenges due to the presence of both liquid
and vapour phases in the cooling device. This work aims to enhance our
understanding of the underlying phenomena using advanced computational
methods. Simulations can give an unprecedented insight into the dynamics
eventually helping design low cost and energy-efficient microchannel
cooling devices. We propose to further develop our simulators accounting
for complex geometries, process the generated large scale data using
machine learning and validate simulations using experiments. Edinburgh’s
expertise in computational and experimental phase-change, parallel
computing, and machine-learning will complement the Brazilian team’s
expertise in finite-element models. The advanced simulators resulting
from this project will be made freely available to public.