Numerical investigation of the impact of inlet and outlet ports of water jet impingement cooling modules

Abstract

The ever‐growing applications of high‐power chips have driven research efforts to enhance the performance of their active cooling modules. This study proposes a simple tweak of the cooling module's ports for lower thermal resistance. A dual‐inlet single‐outlet (CP2) jet impingement cold plate (JICP), a dual‐inlet dual‐outlet (CP3) JICP, and a single‐inlet dual‐outlet (CP4) JICP were assessed computationally and benchmarked against a single‐inlet single‐outlet JICP (CP1) at the same area ratio (AR) and average diameter (Davg) of inlet and outlet ports. The results show that the pressure losses inflate by up to 4.67 folds when using CP3 with AR = 5/3 and Davg = 3.0 mm. Yet, this design also shows the largest Nusselt number and the lowest outlet water temperature, module body temperature, average temperature of the target surface, and thermal resistance (0.07415 K/W). The thermal resistance is reduced by 34.13% using CP3 at AR = 3/5 and Davg = 6.0 mm. The temperature uniformity index was boosted to 97.5%. These enhancements are attributed to the shorter and symmetric flow path, the shorter residence time of water within the JICP, and the direct heat diffusion by the walls of the lower chamber.