Investigation on a gas-atomized spray cooling upon flat and micro-structured surfaces

The high integration and vigorous microminiaturization has led to an exponential growth in the required dissipated heat flux of the on-board electronics (102-103 W/cm(2)). However, the accepted working temperature of common electronics is recommended to be below 85 degrees C. Current spray cooling using the pressure nozzle has toughed its bottleneck. Spray cooling using the gas-atomized nozzle for electronics cooling has not been a focus in the past. Considering the easy availability of the high-pressure air in an atmospheric flight system, a gas atomized spray cooling system can be adopted feasibly. This paper provides a ground-based experimental investigation of the gas-atomized spray cooling using various micro-structured surfaces and a flat surface. Cooling performance of different surfaces and nozzle inlet temperature of coolant are provided and discussed. A cooling correlation of gas-atomized spray cooling upon micro-structured surfaces is provided with a relative error within +/- 9%. In addition, a comparison of spray cooling performances using the gas-atomized nozzle and pressure nozzle is organized. Results show that the gas-atomized spray cooling possesses a huge superiority where a heat transfer coefficient can be enhanced by 234%. Mechanism of the enhanced gas-atomized spray cooling is offered as well.

Automated summary

The study investigates the application of gas-atomized spray cooling technology in electronics cooling, validates its advantages in improving the heat transfer coefficient through experimental data, and provides a mechanism explanation.