Thermal analysis of reservoir structure versus capillary pumped loop

Capillary pumped loop (CPL) was already used in man-made satellites and space aircrafts with proven heat control technology. However, small-sized CPL had not yet made a breakthrough application in electronic components owing to poor heat-absorption capacity of evaporator structure. Hence, a small-scale CPL was designed for server in this research. The evaporator was designed with a circular groove and embedded with a high density polyethylene (HDPE) as a capillary structure to absorb working fluid. The influence of reservoir upon thermal resistance was also analyzed. The experimental results showed that, under a filling level of 72%, CPL with optimized design could remove 110 W energy while maintaining its temperature at 80 °C. Comparison of CPL with/without reservoir, the loop thermal resistance Rth,loop was reduced by 0.14 °C/W and was able to increase the stability of CPL, too, the results confirmed that reservoir could enhance CPL performance and this technology will probably find application in electronics cooling for electronic devices.