Abstract
The future of electrification of vehicles and other systems will require the creation of high-power density power electronics with low junction-to-fluid thermal resistance cooling solutions. One way to create this solution is to move high-heat-flux liquid cooling (single- or two-phase) as close to the power electronics components as possible. One novel approach involves submersion in dielectric fluids as the cooling solution. We first provide the range of fluid properties and develop a figure of merit (FOM) to aid in dielectric fluid selection. Next, we perform computational fluid dynamics/heat transfer (CFD/HT) modeling using single-phase cooling (submerged jet impingement on an enhanced surface) to validate the dielectric fluid FOM. Results of the study show that the developed FOM is a good representation of the performance of the fluids when compared to the results of the CFD/HT analysis. Both FOM and the CFD/HT analysis show that based on pure thermohydraulic considerations, several commercially available fluids present higher performance, on the order of 5% of water. Finally, the FOM can be used to quickly assess the thermohydraulic performance of a dielectric fluid, as well as the secondary application-specific properties such as boiling point, saturation pressure, flash point, and global warming potential, thereby allowing for fluid candidates to be readily compared.
Original language | American English |
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Pages | 308-313 |
Number of pages | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2021 |
Event | 20th InterSociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems, ITherm 2021 - Virtual, San Diego, United States Duration: 1 Jun 2021 → 4 Jun 2021 |
Conference
Conference | 20th InterSociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems, ITherm 2021 |
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Country/Territory | United States |
City | Virtual, San Diego |
Period | 1/06/21 → 4/06/21 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:©2021 IEEE
NREL Publication Number
- NREL/CP-5400-78446
Keywords
- Computational fluid dynamics
- Dielectric fluids
- Electronics cooling
- Heat transfer
- Power electronics
- Thermal management