Integrated Ionic Flow Device and Heat Sink as a Fan Sink Alternative

The norm for component cooling in the server industry today is passive heat sinks utilizing system level airflow. While the larger fans supplying the air flow can be made very efficient, they typically consume large amounts of power. Ionic air moving devices are under investigation in many industries, including the computer industry, as a low power alternative. Ionic devices are not capable of the same high-velocity airflows as axial fans and blowers, but have the advantage of being made part of the heat sink, providing sufficient localized flow. A small axial fan supplying local air flow to a heat sink was compared to an ionic device incorporated into the heat sink to compare power consumed, while cooling a simulated component to a reasonable temperature. It was shown that the ionic device provided the same cooling for an input of 0.17 W compared to the fan at 0.40W. Local cooling represents a paradigm shift from system level cooling, but these data show that in this new paradigm, the ionic devices can provide cooling at lower power input than conventional axial fans.

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