Experimental study of impingement spray cooling for high power devices

An experimental study of a closed-loop impingement spray cooling system to cool a 1 kW 6U electronic test card has been conducted. The system uses R134a as working fluid in a modified refrigeration cycle. The spray from four vapor assisted nozzles is arranged to cover a large ratio of the heated area of the card. Investigations are currently focused on effects of mass flow rate, nozzle inlet pressure and spray chamber pressure. Experimental results are promising with a stable average temperature of around 23 degrees C being maintained at the heated surface, and maximum temperature variation of about 2 degrees C under suitable operating conditions. Heat transfer coefficients up to 5596 W/m(2) K can be achieved with heat flux input around 50,000 W/m(2) in this study. It is found that cooling performance improved with increasing mass flow rate, nozzle inlet pressure and spray chamber pressure, whereas uniformity of the heated surface temperature can only be improved with higher mass flow rate and nozzle inlet pressure. The mechanisms for the enhanced performance are also presented. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.