Thermal Management of the Cooling System of Electronic Boards Using Different Flow Patterns and Nanofluid

Liquid cooling systems play an essential role in various branches of industry. Most electrical and electronic circuits whose power supplies exceed a certain threshold, generating significant heat, employ water-cooling systems instead of air-cooling systems. This study numerically investigates a single-phase liquid cooling system using various nanofluids and innovative flow patterns. The objective of the study is the enhancing of cooling performance and the reducing of temperature in circuit boards. The finite volume method, implemented in the commercial CFD software, ANSYS Fluent, is employed to simulate the fluid flow and heat transfer within the system. Additionally, the pressure drop of the coolant flow is analyzed as a critical parameter. To optimize cooling performance, various flow patterns are explored to minimize the contact surface temperature of power supply components. These patterns include changes in the number of branches from three to five, variations in the width of the passage of the fluid flow beneath electronic components from 10 to 12 millimeters, location of the water channels closer by adding more fluid channels as well as by changing the width of the fluid manifold. Additionally, the impact of incorporating nanofluids is examined. Water-based nanofluids incorporating aluminum oxide and copper oxide nanoparticles at volume fractions of 1%, 3%, and 5% are employed to reduce the temperature of the contact surface of the power supply sources as much as possible. The results indicated that altering the flow pattern and the number of branches led to an optimized flow pattern that reduced the maximum temperature of the power supply components by up to 2.5 degrees Celsius compared with the baseline configuration. Furthermore, the addition of nanoparticles provided a modest temperature reduction of approximately 0.5 degrees Celsius.