Emerging Two-Phase Cooling Technologies for Power Electronic Inverters
In order to meet the Department of Energy's (DOE's) FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies (FVCT) goals for volume, weight, efficiency, reliability, and cost, the cooling of the power electronic devices, traction motors, and generators is critical. Currently the power electronic devices, traction motors, and generators in a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) are primarily cooled by water-ethylene glycol (WEG) mixture. The cooling fluid operates as a single-phase coolant as the liquid phase of the WEG does not change to its vapor phase during the cooling process. In these single-phase systems, two cooling loops of WEG produce a low temperature (around 70 C) cooling loop for the power electronics and motor/generator, and higher temperature loop (around 105 C) for the internal combustion engine. There is another coolant option currently available in automobiles. It is possible to use the transmission oil as a coolant. The oil temperature exists at approximately 85 C which can be utilized to cool the power electronic and electrical devices. Because heat flux is proportional to the temperature difference between the device's hot surface and the coolant, a device that can tolerate higher temperatures enables the device to be smaller while dissipating the same amount of heat. Presently, new silicon carbide (SiC) devices and high temperature direct current (dc)-link capacitors, such as Teflon capacitors, are available but at significantly higher costs. Higher junction temperature (175 C) silicon (Si) dies are gradually emerging in the market, which will eventually help to lower hardware costs for cooling. The development of high-temperature devices is not the only way to reduce device size. Two-phase cooling that utilizes the vaporization of the liquid to dissipate heat is expected to be a very effective cooling method. Among two-phase cooling methods, different technologies such as spray, jet impingement, pool boiling and submersion, etc. are being developed. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is leading the research on a novel floating refrigerant loop that cools high-power electronic devices and the motor/generator with very low cooling energy. The loop can be operated independently or attached to the air conditioning system of the vehicle to share the condenser and other mutually needed components. The ability to achieve low cooling energy in the floating loop is attributable to the liquid refrigerant operating at its hot saturated temperature (around 50 C+). In an air conditioning system, the liquid refrigerant is sub-cooled for producing cool air to the passenger compartment. The ORNL floating loop avoids the sub-cooling of the liquid refrigerant and saves significant cooling energy. It can raise the coefficient of performance (COP) more than 10 fold from that of the existing air-conditioning system, where the COP is the ratio of the cooled power and the input power for dissipating the cooled power. In order to thoroughly investigate emerging two-phase cooling technologies, ORNL subcontracted three university/companies to look into three leading two-phase cooling technologies. ORNL's assessments on these technologies are summarized in Section I. Detailed descriptions of the reports by the three university/companies (subcontractors) are in Section II.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 886005
- Report Number(s):
- ORNL/TM-2005/156; TRN: US200617%%309
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS
42 ENGINEERING
AIR CONDITIONING
AUTOMOBILES
CAPACITORS
COEFFICIENT OF PERFORMANCE
COOLANTS
DIRECT CURRENT
EVAPORATION
GLYCOLS
HEAT FLUX
INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES
INVERTERS
MOTORS
OCCUPANTS
POOL BOILING
REFRIGERANTS
SILICON CARBIDES