Designing new cooling sytem

[Merlin]

I have a year of Elect Eng and experience with refrigeration
So, I have been thinking of a new concept of clooling any chip or CPU.

I'm designing a new cooling sytem using freon in a closed tubing system.
If you ever had the old RV when camping, the refrigerator had a small gas flame to run the freon through one way valves, cooling inside a insulated box.

GM had an idea to run the vehicle AC by way of the heat from a catylitic converter instead of a freon pump connected to the engine belt system. also using one way valves.

In the same way the CPU cooling system heat could transport heat away from the chip by it's own heat exchange, pumping the freon carrying heat through pipes to a fin disapating heat system.

Anyway, just an idea running through my grey matter.
Deckard

 

[madmat]

What you're talking about is essentially the same thing as a heatpipe. That said I think that the CPU would have to get to the thermal point of self destructing before the freon would cycle. The RV system uses a flame and the catalytic converters can reach over 1000 degrees F.

 

[Merlin]

I'm thinking that the RV system was just as an example of how the freon is moved.
The temps would not have to be that high just to move freon in the system. Any heat could move the freon by the valve setting and carried away by the flowing freon.
Different freons have different qualities. Any Freon moves to some degree with heat/pressure.
Such as RG509 moves at a lower pressure than Puron which is RG410a.
And carries more heat. ( RG509 )
And RG12 is even better which is no longer available.( And the whole thing is a myth ) which is another story.
But it may be relevent that a freon device could be the next computer cooling system.
Want to buy any stock?....lol

Deckard

 

[madmat]

There was already a simple freon heatpipe cooler put out a few years back by Asetek, the makers of the Vapochill. It didn't do as well as standard heatpipe coolers and was very short lived

 

[drewd]

I don't think that the RV systems use Freon. If I remember correctly, RV-type refrigerators use either ammonia and water or ammonia, water and hydrogen. They also operate at very high pressures. In the ammonia and water system, the heat source causes the ammonia to boil out of the water, then it travels to the condenser, where it cools to a liquid. The liquid is metered into the evaporator where it removes the heat from the refrigerator and changes into a gas.

The ammonia, water and hydrogen system is similar, except that it relies on the hydrogen to maintain the pressure and the heat source is constantly operating.

The problem that you face is that you need a heat source (which is your CPU) which is sufficient to vaporize your coolant, but will not self destruct doing so. But you also want to cool that same heat source with your refrigerant once it has condensed into its liquid state, at which point you can't use it as a heat source anymore.

The idea that you have is a good one, though. I just think that it may be unnecessarily complicated. With the refrigerator, you essentially have two sources of energy - you're using the energy of the propane flame to remove energy from a heated chamber. But in the case of a CPU, you really only have one source of energy and you need to remove that energy. That's why the heatpipe is a good candidate. It also uses a phase changing material, but doesn't require an external energy source to initiate the phase change.

Maybe what you're after is some kind of super heat pipe.

 

[moon111]

Or you could drop an old heatsink and fan on and call it a day. LOL.

I've always wondered why they don't REALLY fin waterblocks. Maybe it's just me, but I'd feel more comfortable knowing it might air cool a little in case something stopped working.

Are their freon pumps?

 

[Rory Buszka]

Yeah, in a typical phase-change cooling system they're called compressors.