Heat Dissipation Methods of Computer Heat Sinks-CPU Cooler

2024-10-12

The heat dissipation methodrefers to the main way that the heat sink emits heat. In thermodynamics, heat dissipation is heat transfer, and there are three main ways to transfer heat: heat conduction, heat convection and heat radiation. The transfer of energy by the substance itself or when the substance is in contact with the substance is called heat conduction, which is the most common type of heat transfer. For example, the way the base of the CPU heatsink is in direct contact with the CPU to take away heat is heat conduction. Thermal convection refers to the flow of fluids (gas or liquid) will be tropical heat away from the heat transfer method, in the computer chassis cooling system is more common in the cooling fan driven gas flow “forced convection” cooling method. Thermal radiation refers to rely on radiation to transfer heat, the most common daily is solar radiation. These three ways of heat dissipation are not isolated, in the daily heat transfer, these three ways of heat dissipation are occurring at the same time, working together.

In fact, any type of heatsink basically uses all three of these heat transfer methods at the same time, just with a different focus. For example, in an ordinary Cpu Cooler, the CPU heatsink is in direct contact with the CPU surface, and the heat from the CPU surface is transferred to the CPU heatsink through heat conduction; the cooling fan generates airflow to take away the heat from the surface of the CPU heatsink through thermal convection; and the flow of air in the chassis also takes away the heat from the air around the CPU heatsink through thermal convection until the outside of the chassis; and at the same time, all the high-temperature parts will At the same time, all the parts with high temperature will radiate heat to the surrounding parts with low temperature.

The heat dissipation efficiency of a heat sink is related to parameters such as the thermal conductivity of the heat sink material, the heat capacity of the heat sink material and the heat sink medium, and the effective heat dissipation area of the heat sink.

According to the way to take away heat from the radiator, the radiator can be divided into active heat dissipation and passive heat dissipation, the former is commonly air-cooled radiators, while the latter is commonly heat sinks. Further breakdown of the cooling method, can be divided into air-cooled, heat pipe, liquid cooling, semiconductor cooling and compressor cooling and so on.

Air-cooled cooling is the most common, and very simple, is the use of fans to take away the heat absorbed by the radiator. It has the advantages of relatively low price and simple installation, but it is highly dependent on the environment, for example, when the temperature rises and overclocking, its cooling performance will be greatly affected.

Heat pipe is a heat transfer element with very high thermal conductivity, it is through the evaporation and condensation of the liquid in the closed vacuum tube to transfer heat, it uses the gross suction and other fluid principles, similar to the refrigerator compressor refrigeration effect. It has a series of advantages such as very high thermal conductivity, good isothermal properties, heat transfer area on both sides of the hot and cold sides can be changed arbitrarily, heat transfer over long distances, temperature control, etc. Moreover, the heat exchanger composed of heat pipes has the advantages of high heat transfer efficiency, compact structure and small fluid resistance loss. Because of its special heat transfer characteristics, and thus can control the temperature of the tube wall to avoid dew point corrosion. copper pipe CPU AIR COOLER AIO

Liquid cooling is the use of liquid in the pump driven forced circulation to take away the heat of the radiator, compared with the air-cooled has a quiet, stable cooling, small dependence on the environment and other advantages. But the price of heat pipe and liquid cooling is relatively high, and the installation is relatively troublesome.

When purchasing a radiator, you can choose one according to your actual needs and economic conditions, and the principle is good enough. Series Liquid cpu coolers

Environmental heat exchange

When the heat is transmitted to the top of the radiator, it is necessary to disseminate the transmitted heat to the surrounding environment as soon as possible, for the air-cooled radiator is to exchange heat with the surrounding air. At this time, the heat is transferred between two different media, followed by the formula Q = α X A X ΔT, where ΔT for the temperature difference between the two media, that is, the temperature difference between the radiator and the surrounding environment air; α for the thermal conductivity of the fluid, in the heat sink material and the air composition is determined, it is a fixed value; the most important of them is the contact area of the heat sink and the air, under the premise of the other conditions remain unchanged. Such as the volume of the heat sink will generally be limited, the space inside the chassis is limited, too large will increase the difficulty of installation, and by changing the shape of the heat sink, increase its contact area with the air, increase the area of heat exchange, is to improve the efficiency of heat dissipation is an effective means. To achieve this, generally through the use of finned design supplemented by surface roughening or threading and other methods to increase the surface area.