Metrological Characterization of Cold Plates for Power Converters

The reliability of a power converter can be improved using a well-dimensioned cold plate. For this purpose, it is necessary to realize a state-of-the-art cold plate by means of thermal-fluid dynamic numerical analysis and an ad hoc experimental test bench. Features and metrological characterization of a test bench for cold plate characterization are discussed in this paper. An infrared camera is used to measure the outer surfaces, and thermocouples are employed to measure the temperatures of some inner points, but not all the points of a structure under test are accessible to probes and sensing. An accurate 3-D numerical model has been set to widen the cold plate characterization investigating the values of the variables of interest, such as the temperature and the water velocity field, in all the points of the geometry. A case study is described, showing that using modeling with potentially high accuracy in designing new systems can be useful not only to choose, by comparison, the best solution, saving time and prototyping costs, but also to foresee the system performance.

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