Open Access

ARTICLE

THERMAL PERFORMANCE OF LOW-COST COOLING SYSTEMS FOR TRANSMIT/RECEIVE MODULES OF PHASED ARRAY ANTENNAS WITH AND WITHOUT GRAVITY HEAT PIPES

by

a National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”, Heat-and-Power Engineering Department, Kyiv, Ukraine
b V. Lashkaryov Institute of Semiconductor Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Department of Optoelectronics, Kyiv, Ukraine
* Corresponding author. Email: demid.pekur@gmail.com

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer 2022, 18, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.5098/hmt.18.23

Abstract

This study compares thermal characteristics of two design versions of a new low-cost air-cooling system with a standard heat sink profile and built-in flat heat pipes of a simple design with a similar cooling system design without the heat pipes. The aim of the work is to determining the thermal characteristics and choosing the most effective option in a practical context. Using computer simulation in the Solidworks Flow Simulation standard software package allowed determining how the temperature of 8 transistors with a total power of 224 W was affected by changes in air velocity from 1 to 30 m/s, effective thermal conductivity from 1 to 30 kW/(m∙°C), and the number of heat pipes from 8 to 16 pieces. It was determined that the maximum temperature decrease for the transistors is observed in the velocity range from 1 to 10 m/s for all the studied cooling system designs. Using 8 HPs with effective thermal conductivity of 5 kW/(m∙°C) allowed lowering the maximum temperature value on the mounting surface by 22.56°C (from 85.03 to 62.47°C) and reducing surface temperature unevenness more than twice – from 55.7 to 25.93°C). Increasing the effective thermal conductivity of the heat pipes from 1 to 10 kW/(m∙°C) reduced the temperature of the hottest transistor by 15 – 20°C, depending on the system design version. Further increase of the effective thermal conductivity to 30 kW/(m∙°C) reduced the temperature by only 1 – 2°С. Doubling the number of the heat pipes from 8 to 16 did not significantly improve the thermal characteristics of the transistors (by 3.3 – 2.8°С). When the air velocity was increased from 1 to 10 m/s, the total thermal resistance decreased most significantly for the cooling system with 8 heat pipes, namely from 0.179 to 0.068°C/W, while for the version with 16 heat pipes it decreased from 0.164 to 0.054°C/W. Thus, the cooling system with 8 heat pipes with an effective thermal conductivity of up to 10 kW/(m∙°C) and an air velocity in the heat sink channels from 1 to 10 m/s proves to be best suited for practical use in T/R modules.

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