Heat pipe embedded cold plate design with additive manufacturing technologies

Abstract

Heat pipe embedded/integrated cold plates are mostly preferred to increase the thermal conductivity of the base material to have passive thermal management in reliable products. Thanks to Additive Manufacturing (AM) Technology, it became possible to find a high conductive product by simultaneously manufacturing the heat pipe in the cold plate. In this study, the heat pipe embedded cold plate design of an electronic chassis designed for a military product has been investigated in detail. Performing this study, it is seen that there are many outstanding advantages of using AM technology compared to the conventional heat pipe embedding techniques. Thermal analysis of a 6U size cold plate with a high thermal load is performed for aluminum & copper base material and groove type heat pipe embedded aluminum cold plate (HPECP). After that, the manufacturing constraints of both techniques are compared and outstanding design capabilities with AM technology are discussed in detail. It is seen that by using AM technology, it is possible to have a lighter cold plate with improved thermal conductivity in one piece and even lower cost.