Air cooled heat exchangers CPU of computers

Description

Koplow, (2009) reported that in modern computing systems, CPUs are usually confronting a problem of having big amounts of heat and as the CPU is the responsible of systems data processing, it generates heat and when the amount of generated heat is excessive, risk of damaging CPUs or causing them to malfunction is very high. Overheating thus can be tackled and overcome by equipping these working systems with cooling systems such as the air cooled heat exchangers which can help managing temperature and regulating it for keeping CPUs working properly.

The CPUs which are based on air cooled heat exchangers which are based on using fans in CPUs are free of tubes, pipes or cables and have low noise levels. Fans pump air and heat is taken away from the CPU. The discharge pressure is increased via the serial set up and the area coverage is enlarged by the parallel set up. Cool systems enhance the efficiency of the device and ensure desired conditions for performing data processing in the CPUs processors. They improve the system life cycle. CPU cooling systems should be based upon the law of Moore which suggests that the transistors' number lying on the integrated circuits is increasing to the double every two years. This principle should be used with any type of cooling systems used for electronics.

The Process equipment

Construction and principles of working

Heat Sink

According to Dai et al, (2013), CPU cooling systems are having solutions such as using a heat sink which is an assembly of some components prepared for reducing heat via certain operation which is transferring the generates heat by a solid material that takes heat to a medium of fluid which is air. The heat sink has a vast surface which is called the fins and it is extended for extending the surface of the contacted material with air. The heat sink works according to its thermal performance which is affected by some factors such as the material type, the air velocity and the design of the fins. An example of a heat sink is figured in Figure 1.

Figure.1 Heat sink

Heat Pipe Radiators

Heat sinks capabilities can be enhanced by using the heat pipe radiators which are proved to add extra professionalism to the heat sinks that have fins as a heat sink can be used added to head pipes instead of the fins. Heat pipes are different from fins as they are hollow for the heat sink but the fins are a material which is solid. These heat pipes are the same as the solid pipes if analyzed geometrically but they have a coefficient which is stronger in heat transferring. Figure 2 is showing a heat sink with the addition of heat pipes instead of using fins.

Figure 2 : A heat sink with heat pipes

Heat Pipe

The heat pipe is a pipe which is both sealed and evacuated and inside it, there is a small amount of the fluid needed for the heating transfer process and a wick structure. A heat sink can use a heat pipe as an additional tool. Its design can vary and differ to many designs. In figure 3 there is a model of the layout of a heat pipe and figure 4 provides a real figure for a real heat pipe. The presented design in the figures is expressing a very simple design as additional tubes can be added for the liquid as well as some moving elements. The current example represents a heat pipe that doesn't need a source of power due to the use of the liquid for natural convection in order to distribute the heat. 

Figures 3 -4

There are main advantages for heat pipes as they can enhance the ability of heat sinks according to their designs and performance and among them are three major ones which are:

1. The ability of the heat pipes to provide help for heat distribution by raising the thermal conductivity.
2. The heat pipes are working as a heat conductive path that can take the heat from down to anywhere in order to use small CPU packages for managing heat.
3. Heat pipes raises conductivity and efficiency of the heat sink.

Heat pipes designs are varied according to what is required for performance improvement. Measures of pipes diameters can vary from 3mm to 4mm and 6mm. (Fbo.gov, 2015)

The Applications of the equipment in the industry

Air cooled heat exchangers CPU of computers are widely used in computers industry as they are used to remove the waste heat in order to preserve the efficiency of the device. In computer industry, there are many applications for these devices such as using them to reduce heat from integrated circuits, hard disk drives, CPUs chipset and graphic cards. In computer industry, cooling can be made by many techniques in protecting desktop computers, servers, rack mounted and laptops with differences in each application according to its needs and the level of performance. There are many designs for the device in the industry. (Computercool,  2015)

The heat transfer processes in the equipment

The equipment uses its parts to transfer the thermal energy from a device which has high temperature to a medium that is characterized with lower temperature which is air. The air cooled heat exchangers CPUs of computers have cooling systems which are based on elements which are a reservoir and an air cooling heat exchanger. Heat is transferred from the CPU into the cooling air then the air cooled heat exchanger cools the processors using the fins or the heat sinks.