Cooling of electronic components using arrays of microjets

Electronic cooling has become a subject of interest in recent years due to the constantly increasing speed and sustainable power of microchips. Conventional forced air cooling techniques can not satisfy the new cooling requirements and new methods have to be sought. Jet cooling has been used in other industrial fields and it has demonstrated the capability of sustaining high heat transfer rates.; The goal of this work was to investigate the heat transfer under arrays of microjets. Ten different arrays have been tested using deionized water and FC40 as test fluids. The data have been correlated using only three nondimensional groups, in a manner similar to that used in the literature. An optimal configuration of the main geometrical parameters can be established for given cooling requirements of the electronic component.; The effect of varying noncondensable gas content in the ambient surrounding the jets on the heat transfer under microjet arrays has also been investigated and no significant enhancement has been found as the volume fraction of noncondensable gas is decreased for the range of flowrates investigated.; This work demonstrates that jet cooling can be used for electronic cooling. For that purpose a prototype of a closed system cooling module based on microjet arrays has been built and successfully tested.; A comparison of the results with those obtained using droplet sprays has shown that the microjet arrays can provide the same heat transfer rates, but a lower energy cost.