Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H05—ELECTRIC TECHNIQUES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • H05K—PRINTED CIRCUITS; CASINGS OR CONSTRUCTIONAL DETAILS OF ELECTRIC APPARATUS; MANUFACTURE OF ASSEMBLAGES OF ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS
  • H05K7/00—Constructional details common to different types of electric apparatus
  • H05K7/20—Modifications to facilitate cooling, ventilating, or heating
  • H05K7/20218—Modifications to facilitate cooling, ventilating, or heating using a liquid coolant without phase change in electronic enclosures
  • H05K7/20245—Modifications to facilitate cooling, ventilating, or heating using a liquid coolant without phase change in electronic enclosures by natural convection; Thermosiphons
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H05—ELECTRIC TECHNIQUES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • H05K—PRINTED CIRCUITS; CASINGS OR CONSTRUCTIONAL DETAILS OF ELECTRIC APPARATUS; MANUFACTURE OF ASSEMBLAGES OF ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS
  • H05K7/00—Constructional details common to different types of electric apparatus
  • H05K7/20—Modifications to facilitate cooling, ventilating, or heating
  • H05K7/20709—Modifications to facilitate cooling, ventilating, or heating for server racks or cabinets; for data centers, e.g. 19-inch computer racks
  • H05K7/20763—Liquid cooling without phase change
  • H05K7/20781—Liquid cooling without phase change within cabinets for removing heat from server blades
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H05—ELECTRIC TECHNIQUES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • H05K—PRINTED CIRCUITS; CASINGS OR CONSTRUCTIONAL DETAILS OF ELECTRIC APPARATUS; MANUFACTURE OF ASSEMBLAGES OF ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS
  • H05K7/00—Constructional details common to different types of electric apparatus
  • H05K7/20—Modifications to facilitate cooling, ventilating, or heating
  • H05K7/20709—Modifications to facilitate cooling, ventilating, or heating for server racks or cabinets; for data centers, e.g. 19-inch computer racks
  • H05K7/208—Liquid cooling with phase change
  • H05K7/20818—Liquid cooling with phase change within cabinets for removing heat from server blades

Definitions

• This disclosure relates generally to cooling systems, methods, and designs thereof. More specifically, the disclosure relates to cooling systems and/or methods with radiative cooling, and optionally thermosiphon cooling.
• the present disclosure describes a method of cooling a conditioned space including a housing receiving electronic components and an internal cooling component disposed inside the housing to direct a working fluid in thermal contact with the electronic components to reject heat therefrom.
• the method includes providing a thermally coupling component thermally connecting the internal cooling component to a radiative cooling component disposed outside of the housing, and configured to transfer heat from the working fluid of the internal cooling component.
• the method further includes providing, via a radiative cooling surface of the radiative cooling component, radiative cooling directly or indirectly to the working fluid of the internal cooling component.
• cooling systems and methods can efficiently remove heat from internal cooling mechanisms in a conditioned space (e.g., data centers).
• Radiative cooling used herein allows heat being rejected into an outer space, mitigating urban heat island effect and reducing energy consumption.
• thermosiphon technology can be adopted to remove heat from the internal cooling mechanisms to transfer to the radiative cooling without pumping working or facility fluids outside the conditioned space.
• FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a cooling system, according to an embodiment.
• FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a cooling system, according to an embodiment.
• FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a modular data center with a cooling system, according to an embodiment.
• FIG. 7B is a schematic diagram of a cooling system including a radiative cooling component, a refrigerant circuit subsystem, and a thermosiphon component, according to an embodiment.
• the refrigerant vapor is transported, via an adiabatic channel section 23, from the evaporator section 22 to a condenser section 24 of the thermosiphon cooling mechanism 20 disposed inside an outdoor water tank 164.
• the refrigerant vapor condenses and releases heat at the condenser section 24 and returns to the evaporator section 22 via the adiabatic channel section 23.
• the adiabatic channel section 23 may include one or more channels (e.g., one or more copper tubes) to form a closed or open thermosiphon loop.
• Heat from the condenser section 24 of the thermosiphon cooling mechanism 20 is transferred to a facility fluid, e.g., water in the outdoor water tank 164.
• the heated water is pumped out of the water tank 164 to be cooled by a passive radiative cooling component 30 and/or an optional second cooling component 104 (e.g., a cooling tower) to be described further below.
• the refrigerant vapor is transported, via an adiabatic channel section 23, from the evaporator section 22 to a condenser section 24 of the thermosiphon cooling mechanism 20 disposed inside an outdoor water tank 164.
• the refrigerant vapor condenses and releases heat at the condenser section 24 and returns to the evaporator section 22.
• Heat from the condenser section 24 of the thermosiphon cooling mechanism 20 is transferred to a facility fluid, e.g., water in the outdoor water tank 164.
• the heated water is pumped out of the water tank 164 to be cooled by the passive radiative cooling component 30 and/or the optional cooling tower 104 in the same manner as described above for the embodiment depicted in FIG. 2.
• the cooling fluid provided to the enclosures 54 of the modular data center 5 may include any suitable dielectric fluids, or non-dielectric fluids, used in a single-phase cooling process such as discussed above for FIG. 2, in a two-phase cooling process such as discussed above for FIG.
• FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of a method 500 of providing cooling to a conditioned space (e.g., a data center), according to one embodiment.
• the data center can be, for example, an indoor data center such as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, a modular data center such as shown in FIG. 5, or any other types of data center suitable to be cooled by the cooling systems and methods described herein.
• the method 500 can be implemented by any suitable cooling systems described herein with a local or remote control mechanism.
• data center conditions and ambient conditions are monitored.
• Various sensing data can be collected, via sensors such as the sensors 4 in FIG. 1, to monitor conditions such as temperature data (e.g., room temperature, outdoor temperature, etc.) and humidity data (e.g., room humidity, outdoor humidity, etc.) at the data center and ambient conditions (e.g., sunny, cloudy, daytime, nighttime, etc.) for a radiative cooling component.
• temperature data e.g., room temperature, outdoor temperature, etc.
• humidity data e.g., room humidity, outdoor humidity, etc.
• ambient conditions e.g., sunny, cloudy, daytime, nighttime, etc.
• Environmental effects can severely impact data center equipment. For example, excessive heat buildup can damage servers, and may cause them to shut down automatically. In addition, high humidity can lead to condensation, corrosion and contaminants of equipment in the data center. Such environmental effects can be monitored in real time to determine whether to trigger cooling operations.
• the performance of condenser 610 may be dependent on the radiative cooling component performance (e.g., the outlet coolant temperature from the passive radiative cooling component 30 to the BPHE 610), flow rate of coolant, etc.
• the performance of condenser 64 e.g., an air-cooled condenser
• the controller 65 may collect various sensor data and control the cooling system to reduce usage of the air-cooled condenser 64 (e.g., by reducing fan power consumption) and take more advantage of the passive radiative cooling component 30 to reject heat.
• the refrigerant circuit 60 of the cooling system 600’ has a dual-refrigerant-circuit configuration. That is, the refrigerant circuit 60 includes first compressor 62a and second compressor 62b arranged in parallel, first expansion valve 66a and first expansion valve 66b arranged in parallel, the condensers 64 and 610, and the evaporator 68.
• the controller 65 may control the condenser 610 to work with a part load (e.g., with the capacity requirement less than 50%), and the air-cooled condenser 64 may be set at an OFF state.
• the condenser 610 e.g., BHPE
• EER energy efficiency ratio
• the controller 65 can control the cooling system 600’ to have the condenser 610 to work with a part load, and control the dual-refrigerant-circuit configuration to operate selectively with the first refrigerant circuit (e.g., 62a, 64, 66a and 68, forming an air-cooled system) or the second refrigerant circuit (e.g., 62b, 610, 66b and 68, forming a water-cooled system), depending on the ambient air temperature of the condenser 64, the radiatively cooled water flow rate/temperature of the condenser 610, etc., to gain a maximum EER.
• the first refrigerant circuit e.g., 62a, 64, 66a and 68, forming an air-cooled system
• the second refrigerant circuit e.g., 62b, 610, 66b and 68, forming a water-cooled system
• the controller 65 can control the heat exchanger 610 to be operational with the radiatively cooled water/coolant, and both compressors 62a and 62b can be OFF to increase the part load efficiency and EER.
• refrigerant superheat can be used as a parameter to evaluate and control the performance of a cooling system, for example, as an indication of evaporator performance.
• “Superheat” may refer to a temperature difference between the temperature of refrigerant vapor at a suction/discharge line of a compressor and its saturation temperature at the corresponding suction/discharge pressure. Superheat can be measured using temperature sensor(s) placed at the suction/discharge line of the compressor. The measured temperature can be compared to the saturation temperature corresponding to the suction/discharge pressure to determine the temperature difference (i.e., superheat).
• subcool or subcooling may be used as a parameter to evaluate the performance of condenser(s) or condenser section(s).
• the controller 65 can control the operation of the cooling system 600’ based various sensor data. For example, when the controller 65 determines that (i) the heat rejection to the working fluid (e.g., coolant/water) of the radiative cooling component 30 at the heat exchanger 610 and/or (ii) the heat rejection at the evaporator 68 (e.g., to absorb heat from the facility fluid (e.g., hot air or water) from a data center) is not sufficient, the controller 65 can control the system 600’ to turn on the first refrigerant circuit (e.g., the air-cooled system including 62a, 64, 66a and 68) to provide additional cooling at the evaporator 68.
• the first refrigerant circuit e.g., the air-cooled system including 62a, 64, 66a and 68
• the controller 65 can control the system 600’ to turn off the first refrigerant circuit (e.g., the aircooled system including 62a, 64, 66a and 68).
• the first refrigerant circuit e.g., the aircooled system including 62a, 64, 66a and 68.
• two or more active refrigerant circuits may be provided to one or more passive, radiative cooling components (e.g., the radiative cooling component 30) in a cooling system (e.g., the cooling system 600 or 600’).
• a cooling system e.g., the cooling system 600 or 600’.
• suitable numbers of water-cooled system(s) and air-cooled system(s) can be provided to the cooling system, which can be controlled by the controller 65 based on various sensor data collected in the system.
• cold water/coolant generated from the radiative cooling component 30 during nighttime can be stored in an insulated tank.
• an optional insulated tank 69 is fluidly connected, via the pump 35, to the radiative cooling component 30 to receive cold water/coolant generated therefrom, as shown in FIG. 6A.
• the cold water/coolant can be used to freeze a phase change material. During the daytime usage at higher heat load conditions, the stored cold water/coolant generated or the frozen phase change material can be used.
• FIG. 7A-C are schematic diagrams of cooling systems 700, 700’, 700” each including a radiative cooling component 30, an active refrigerant circuit 60, and a thermosiphon component 20, according to some embodiments.
• the respective working fluids of the active refrigerant circuit 60 and the thermosiphon component 20 can circulate within the respective circuits and may not be connected or mixed.
• the active refrigerant circuit 60 includes an evaporator 68
• the thermosiphon device 20 includes an evaporator section 88 being arranged to the evaporator 68 of the active refrigerant circuit 60 in parallel.
• the evaporator 68 is connected to the active refrigerant circuit 60, and the evaporator 88 is connected, via the thermosiphon component 20 to the radiative cooling component 30.
• the evaporators 68 and 88 can be arranged as a heat exchanger 70.
• the heat exchanger 70 includes the first evaporator 68 and the second evaporator 88 which are arranged in parallel to each other, downstream of a control valve 73 (e.g., a 3-way directional control valve).
• the hot facility fluid from the data center 10 can be divided into the first evaporator 68 and the second evaporator 88, and can be cooled by the active refrigerant circuit 60, and the thermosiphon cooling mechanism or component 20, respectively.
• the evaporator 68, 88 may have a BPHE configuration, or a shell and tube type evaporator heat exchanger configuration to absorb heat from hot water from the data center 10.
• the thermosiphon condenser section may have, for example, a hot wall or skin type heat exchanger configuration, a roll bond type heat exchanger configuration, etc.
• the thermosiphon component 20 may have its radiative film disposed (e.g., pasted) to one side of sheet facing the sky.
• FIG. 7A illustrates the cooling system 700 having the first evaporator 68 of the active refrigeration circuit 60 and the second evaporator 88 of the thermosiphon cooling mechanism 20 arranged in parallel to each other.
• the hot air or water from the data center 10 can be passed through one or both evaporators 68, 88.
• the controller 75 can control, via the control valve 73, the amount of hot air or water from the data center 10 to the parallel first and second evaporators 68, 88.
• the controller 75 when the controller 75 determines that the cooling of hot air or water from the second evaporator 88 (i.e., the thermosiphon evaporator) is sufficiently enough, the controller 75 can control both evaporator 68 and 88 to have certain hot airflow or water flow from the data center 10. Otherwise, the active refrigeration circuit 60 connected to the first evaporator 68 may have more airflow or water flow from the data center 10 than the passive radiative cooling component 30 connected to the second evaporator 88.
• the hot air or water may first get pre-cooled by the second evaporator 88 of the thermosiphon cooling mechanism 20, and then pass through the first evaporator 68 of the active refrigerant circuit 60.
• the controller 75 can control the operation of the cooling system 700’ based various sensor data. For example, when the controller 75 determines that the cooling of hot air or water from the second evaporator 88 (i.e., the thermosiphon evaporator) is not sufficient, the controller 75 can control turn on the active refrigerant circuit 60 to provide additional cooling at the first evaporator 68. When the controller 75 determines that the cooling of hot air or water from the second evaporator 88 (i.e., the thermosiphon evaporator) is sufficient, the controller 75 can control turn off the active refrigerant circuit 60.
• FIG. 7C illustrates the cooling system 700” where a thermosiphon condenser 710 acts as a cascade heat exchanger.
• the cooling water or coolant from the outlet 33 of the radiative cooling component 30 is routed, via the pump 35, to the thermosiphon condenser 710 to cool refrigerant from the heat exchanger 70.
• the thermosiphon condenser 710 can be positioned adjacent to and fluidly connected to the thermosiphon evaporator 88 to form an efficient thermosiphon loop.
• thermosiphon condenser 710 can be located relatively closer to the thermosiphon evaporator 88 than to the radiative cooling component 30, which can be beneficial, for example, when the radiative cooling component 30 is located relatively far away from the thermosiphon evaporator 88.
• Heat from the data center 10 is absorbed by the first evaporator 68 and the second evaporator 88, which can be arranged in parallel to each other such as shown in the embodiment of FIG. 7A, or arranged in series such as shown in the embodiment of FIG. 7B.
• the first evaporator 68 After passing through the first evaporator 68, the heat of the hot air or water is then dissipated at the active refrigerant circuit 60.
• the second evaporator 88 the heat of the hot air or water is then dissipated at the cascade condenser 710 by the cooling water/coolant circulated in the radiative cooling component 30.
• the controller 75 can turn off the active refrigerant circuit 60 when determining that the heat load of the cooling system is less than a predetermined level and the thermosiphon cooling component 30 alone can cool the hot air or water from the data center 10 to a desired temperature. It is to be understood that the controller 75 can control the operations of systems based on various sensor data collected for the systems 700, 700’ and 700”.
• FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of a cooling system 800 including a radiative cooling component 30, an active refrigerant circuit 60, and a thermosiphon component 80, according to an embodiment.
• the active refrigerant circuit 60 and the thermosiphon component 80 can be applied as a thermally coupling component such as the thermally coupling component 120 of FIG. 1.
• the active refrigerant circuit 60 and the thermosiphon component 80 can be provided to thermally connect an internal cooling component and the radiative cooling component 30 to transfer heat from the working fluid of the internal cooling component, and to reject the heat along with the radiative cooling component 30.
• a facility fluid e.g., hot air, hot water, or the like
• a data center can be directly cooled by the thermosiphon component 80.
• the cascade heat exchanger 810 may include a shell side on which the refrigerant from the thermosiphon component 80 is in a vapor state.
• the vapor state refrigerant may be thermally in direct contact with (i) one set of tubes which carries the refrigerant of the active refrigerant circuit 60 and (ii) another set of tubes which carries the coolant/water from the radiative cooling component 30.
• a shell side of the shell and tube heat exchanger 810 may be filled with coolant which can be circulated to the radiative cooling component 30.
• Hot air or water from the data center 10 can be cooled by the evaporator 82 of the thermosiphon component 80.
• Heat absorbed by the thermosiphon evaporator 82 can be rejected at the cascade heat exchanger 810 and/or the thermosiphon condenser 84 (e.g., an air cooled heat exchanger).
• the heat exchanger 810 and/or the thermosiphon condenser 84 are arranged in parallel to each other, downstream of a control valve 83 (e.g., a 3-way directional control valve).
• the thermosiphon condenser 84 can be connected to the thermosiphon evaporator 82 to form a thermosiphon loop.
• a controller 85 may collect sensing data from sensor(s) located downstream of the thermosiphon condenser 84 or the cascade heat exchanger 810 to determine whether the associated condensation is complete or not (e.g., by calculating sub-cooling). When the controller 85 determines that the thermosiphon condenser 84 is not condensing all refrigerant from the thermosiphon evaporator 82, the controller 85 can control the 3 -way directional control valve 83 to direct certain amount of refrigerant to the cascade heat exchanger 810.
• the radiative cooling component 30 can pass, via the pump 35, cold water/coolant through the cascade heat exchanger 810 to absorb the heat from the refrigerant of thermosiphon component 80 and condense the refrigerant.
• the controller 85 determines that the capacity of the radiative cooling component 30 is not sufficient to cool the refrigerant at the heat exchanger 810, the controller 85 can turn on the active refrigerant circuit 60 to cool the refrigerant of the thermosiphon component 80 at the cascade heat exchanger 810.
• the active refrigerant circuit 60 includes the compressor 62, the condenser 64, the expansion device 66, and an evaporator section including at least a portion of the cascade heat exchanger 810.
• the active refrigerant circuit 60 and the thermosiphon component 90 can be applied as a thermally coupling component such as the thermally coupling component 120 of FIG. 1.
• the active refrigerant circuit 60 and the thermosiphon component 90 can be provided to thermally connect an internal cooling component and the radiative cooling component 30 to transfer heat from the working fluid of the internal cooling component, and to reject the heat along with the radiative cooling component 30.
• a facility fluid e.g., hot air, hot water, or the like
• a data center can be directly cooled by the thermosiphon component 90.
• hot air or water from the data center 10 can transfer heat to an evaporator 92 of the thermosiphon component 90.
• the evaporator 92 may be, for example, an air-to-refrigerant heat exchanger.
• the refrigerant of the evaporator 92 is evaporated and condensed at (i) a condenser 94a (e.g., air cooled) of the thermosiphon component 90 and/or (ii) at a condenser 910 which is cooled by the radiative cooling component 30.
• the controller 95 can control the 3-way valve 93 to direct certain amounts of refrigerant to the thermosiphon condenser 94a (e.g., air-cooled).
• the controller 95 determines that the capacity of the radiative cooling component 30 and the thermosiphon condenser 94a (e.g., air-cooled) together may not be sufficient, the controller 95 can turn on the active refrigerant circuit 60 to provide active cooling at the evaporator 94b of the active refrigerant circuit 60.
• the active refrigerant circuit 60 includes the compressor 62, the condenser 64, the expansion device 66, and an evaporator section including at least a portion of the evaporator 94b.
• thermosiphon condenser 94a e.g., air cooled
• the evaporator 94b of the active refrigerant circuit 60 may be arranged as a heat exchanger 94 which may be shared by the active refrigerant circuit 60 and the thermosiphon component 90.
• the heat exchanger 94 may have an interlaced or intertwined coil arrangement.
• FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example heat exchanger 940 having an intertwined or interlaced configuration.
• Aspect 21 is the cooling system of any one of aspects 1-10, wherein the thermally coupling component includes an active refrigerant circuit including a first condenser and a second condenser arranged in parallel.
• Aspect 23 is the cooling system of any one of aspects 1-10 and 21-22, wherein the thermally coupling component includes an active refrigerant circuit and a thermosiphon device, the active refrigerant circuit including an evaporator, the thermosiphon device including an evaporator section being arranged in parallel to the evaporator of the active refrigerant circuit.
• the thermally coupling component includes an active refrigerant circuit and a thermosiphon device, the active refrigerant circuit including an evaporator, the thermosiphon device including an evaporator section being arranged in parallel to the evaporator of the active refrigerant circuit.
• Aspect 24 is the cooling system of any one of aspects 1-10 and 21-23, wherein the thermally coupling component includes an active refrigerant circuit and a thermosiphon device, the active refrigerant circuit including an evaporator, the thermosiphon device including an evaporator section being arranged in series with the evaporator of the active refrigerant circuit.
• the thermally coupling component includes an active refrigerant circuit and a thermosiphon device, the active refrigerant circuit including an evaporator, the thermosiphon device including an evaporator section being arranged in series with the evaporator of the active refrigerant circuit.
• Aspect 26 is the cooling system of any one of aspects 1-10 and 21-25, wherein the thermally coupling component includes a thermosiphon device, an active refrigerant circuit, and a cascade heat exchanger to conduct heat exchange among the thermosiphon device, the active refrigerant circuit, and the radiative cooling component, the cascade heat exchanger being connected to a condenser section of the thermosiphon device in parallel.
• the thermally coupling component includes a thermosiphon device, an active refrigerant circuit, and a cascade heat exchanger to conduct heat exchange among the thermosiphon device, the active refrigerant circuit, and the radiative cooling component, the cascade heat exchanger being connected to a condenser section of the thermosiphon device in parallel.
• Aspect 27 is the cooling system of any one of aspects 1-10 and 21-26, wherein the thermally coupling component includes a thermosiphon device, an active refrigerant circuit, and a heat exchanger acting as an evaporator of the active refrigerant circuit and a condenser section of the thermosiphon device.
• the thermally coupling component includes a thermosiphon device, an active refrigerant circuit, and a heat exchanger acting as an evaporator of the active refrigerant circuit and a condenser section of the thermosiphon device.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Microelectronics & Electronic Packaging (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Thermal Sciences (AREA)
• Computer Hardware Design (AREA)
• General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Cooling Or The Like Of Electrical Apparatus (AREA)

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• 2023
  • 2023-10-17 EP EP23879304.6A patent/EP4606188A1/de active Pending
  • 2023-10-17 WO PCT/IB2023/060467 patent/WO2024084388A1/en not_active Ceased
  • 2023-10-17 CN CN202380086543.7A patent/CN120380851A/zh active Pending

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