Nozzle nobbles heat

Professor Tim Shedd, a mechanical engineer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and graduate student Adam Pautsch have created a spray cooling method for computer chips that early tests show can remove heat at rates up to three times faster than other spray techniques.

Rather than wetting computer chips with a cone-shaped shower of coolant as do existing devices, the new system drenches chips with high velocity lines of liquid, much like sheets of wind-driven rain.

"As far as the density of heat goes, this technology can remove up to four times what the space shuttle experiences upon re-entry," says Shedd, "which is performance we haven't seen before."

The key, he says, is that when it contacts the chip, the coolant mimics a boiling liquid, one of the most efficient and widely used means to remove heat, while avoiding the problems true boiling can cause.

"Ever since we began boiling liquids inside heat exchangers, we haven't really seen any dramatic shifts in the basic mechanisms of heat exchange," says Shedd. "With this technology we're taking advantage of new ways to think about heat transfer."