Fujikura: Development of High-performance Heat Pipe for Data Center Cooling

TOKYO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Fujikura Ltd. (Director, President and CEO, Naoki Okada)(TOKYO:5803) has developed a high performance heat pipe for data center cooling application. Newly developed heat pipe has doubled the maximum heat transfer capacity compared with our conventional products.

In data centers, server CPUs are becoming more powerful as 5G and AI become more widespread, leading to faster communications. The more powerful a CPU, the more heat it generates, and the more cooling it needs to perform up to its full potential. To address this cooling issue, a high-performance liquid cooling system works well, but such system requires very high infrastructure cost. To avoid the high cost, there is a trend of extending the usage of inexpensive but high performance air cooling solutions. High performance heat pipe is required for the air cooling systems.

A heat pipe is an evacuated and sealed container charged with a small quantity of working fluid. Without the assistance of any external force, a heat pipe can transfer heat from one end to other by the repeated action of vaporization and condensation. New wick structure is developed to enhance the performance of traditional heat pipe. Maximum heat transfer capacity of the new heat pipe (original diameter 8mm and flattening thickness 4mm) reached to 100[W] compared to that of the conventional types 55[W].

We will continue to meet customer’s expectations and contribute to the further development of information and communications infrastructure by improving the performance of cooling modules.

[Explanation of Terms]
• Heat pipe
Heat pipe is recognized as a well-known passive two phase heat transfer device. Basically, heat pipe consists of an evacuated and sealed metal container charged with a small quantity of working fluid. When heat is input in one end of the heat pipe vaporization of the liquid occurs and due to the pressure difference the generated vapor moves to the other end of the heat pipe where it condensed back to liquid by releasing the latent heat; then condensed liquid returns to the heating section via the wick structure which is attached along the container of the heat pipe. Because of the repeated action of vaporization and condensation heat is transferred from one end to the other without the assistance of any kind of external force.
Contacts
Thermal technology department
e-mail: fjk.thermal@jp.fujikura.com