Much focus has been placed on the thermal management of electronics in recent years. An overall reduction in size of electronic components as well as advances in chip technology, leading to ever higher power dissipation, have increased the necessity for innovative cooling designs. While computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software packages have been instrumental in the design of cooling systems, it remains important to validate these CFD predictions through experimentation. The present work focuses on the experimental evaluation of several variations of an air cooled base plate channel design for an array of generic power amplifier modules. In the current study two materials, graphite foam and a microfibrous material, are investigated as mini-heat exchangers to be implemented in the cooling channel of the base plate. Computational simulations have been conducted on some of the proposed designs in order to evaluate certain parameters. Experiments were conducted measuring chip temperatures and the pressure drop across the cooling channel. Effective heat transfer coefficients were also reverse engineered.

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The increasing demand for smaller more compact electronic systems as well as the need to handle higher levels of power dissipation has lead to an increase in necessity for more innovative cooling designs. In recent years, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software has been used extensively in the design of thermal control systems for electronics. In many cases, there remains a need for experimental evaluation of cooling systems in order to validate the results of the CFD simulations. The present work investigates several variations of a liquid cooled base plate channel design for an array of generic power amplifier units. Several different channel insert configurations are investigated as miniheat exchangers using both copper fins and graphite foam. Experiments were conducted measuring the chip temperatures as well as the inlet liquid temperature. CFD simulations were also conducted to guide the experimental program. Effective heat transfer coefficients were also reverse-engineered using CFD software and the experimental results.

This work explores several variations of a liquid-cooled base-plate channel design for a high-packing-spacing array of generic power-amplifier units. Several different channel-insert configurations are investigated as mini heat exchangers using graphite foam, copper fins, or nanoparticles dispersed within the cooling fluid. Experiments were conducted measuring the chip temperatures as a means of determining the effectiveness of the various cooling schemes. Computational fluid dynamics simulations were also conducted to guide the experimental program. Effective heat transfer coefficients were also reverse-engineered using computational fluid dynamics software and the experimental results. The results presented are useful for thermal designers seeking effective thermalmanagement alternatives that may be most effective for a given application.

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