Electricity: conductors and insulators – With fluids or vacuum – With cooling or fluid feeding – circulating or distributing
Patent
1991-02-15
1992-11-17
Nimmo, Morris H.
Electricity: conductors and insulators
With fluids or vacuum
With cooling or fluid feeding, circulating or distributing
361388, H01B 734
Patent
active
051645416
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooling system including a plurality of circuit boards equipped with a plurality of components for dissipating heat and having a thermal drain for evacuating said heat, a heat exchanger delivering heat to a cooling medium, and means to transfer heat from the thermal drain to said heat exchanger.
2. Background Information
Such a cooling system is already known in the art, e.g. from the published European patent application 0231456 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,405. Therein, the means to transfer the heat from the thermal drains are integrated with the heat exchanger in a closed circuit with evaporators at the side of the thermal drains, a condensor at the side of the heat exchanger, and a network of pipes interconnecting the evaporators and the condensor.
A drawback of this known system is that a leakage in this closed circuit causes a malfunction of the whole cooling system.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide a cooling system of the above type but which does not present this drawback while providing an equally high or better cooling efficiency.
This object is achieved due to the fact that the heat transfer means comprise a network of mechanically and thermally intercoupled individually sealed heat conductors.
In this way, due to the fact that the heat conductors do not form part of a closed circuit but are individually sealed with respect to each other, a malfunction of an individual heat conductor does not lead to a breakdown of the whole cooling system.
Another characteristic feature of the present invention is that at least one of said heat conductors includes at least one heat pipe, which is a sealed pipe having a high thermal conductivity due to a continuous process of evaporation and condensation of a fluid taking place therein.
In this way, a high thermal efficiency of the cooling system is obtained. Such a sealed heat pipe is for instance described in the book "Heat pipes" by P. Dunn et al, published by "Pergamon Press Ltd" in 1976 and in the "Handbook of Heat Transfer Applications", second edition, by W. M. Rohsenow et al, published by McGraw-Hill Book Company, more particularly in chapter 5 thereof, pages 5-1 to 5-12.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The above mentioned and other objects and features of the invention will become more apparent and the invention itself will be best understood by referring to the following description of an embodiment taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein:
FIG. 1 is a side view of a first embodiment of a cooling system according to the invention for a plurality of parallel mounted circuit boards;
FIG. 2 is a top view in the direction of arrow II of the system of FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view along line III--III and in the direction of the arrows of FIG. 1;
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a second embodiment of a cooling system according to the invention for a plurality of cylindrically mounted circuit boards.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT(S)
The cooling system of the present invention is useful for a telecommunication exchange for cooling electronic components which must dissipate a large amount of heat due to the high frequency of their operation and their large scale integration.
Reference is first made to FIGS. 1 and 2. FIG. 1 schematically represents a side view of two subracks of electronic circuit boards 3 mounted above each other, the lower subrack being only partially shown. FIG. 2 schematically represents a top view of the top subrack of FIG. 1 in the direction of arrow II below the dotted line. A plurality of such subracks mounted above each other form a rack, and a plurality of such racks mounted next to each other together constitute the hardware of a telecommunication exchange.
Each of the above subracks carries a plurality of parallel mounted circuit boards 3, each equipped with heat dissipating electronic components such as 1 and 2, and having an incorporat
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"Heat Pipes" by P. Dunn and D. A. Reay; Pergamon Press; 1976; N.Y.
"Handbook of Heat Transfer Applications"; 2nd Ed. by W. M. Rohsenow, J. P. Hartnett, E. N. Ganic; McGraw-Hill Book Co.
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Decolvenaer Etienne K. A.
Leyssens Franciso J. C.
Van Weereld Paul J. E.
ALCATEL N.V.
Nimmo Morris H.
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