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 Heat Transfer Engineering, 34(5–6):434–446, 2013
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ISSN: 0145-7632 print / 1521-0537 online
DOI: 10.1080/01457632.2012.721316

Advances in Electronics Cooling

JACKSON B. MARCINICHEN, JONATHAN A. OLIVIER, NICOLAS

LAMAISON, and JOHN R. THOME
Laboratory of Heat and Mass Transfer (LTCM), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

This article highlights the advantages of on-chip microchannel cooling technology, based on first- and second-law analysis
and experimental tests on two types of cooling cycles, the first driven by an oil-free liquid pump and the second by an oil-free
vapor compressor. The analysis showed that the drivers of the fluid were the main culprits for major losses. It was further
Downloaded by [EPFL Bibliothèque] at 05:04 23 August 2013

found that when energy recovery is of importance, making use of a vapor compression cycle increases the quality of the
recovered energy, hence increasing its value. This was demonstrated by analyzing the synergy that can exist between the
waste heat of a data center and heat reuse by a coal-fired power plant. It was found that power-plant efficiencies can be
increased by up to 6.5% by making use of a vapor compression cycle, which results not only in significant monetary savings,
but also in the reduced overall carbon footprints of both the data center and the power plant.

INTRODUCTION cost of approximately $6.1 billion [1, 2]. Assuming an annual

The miniaturization of silicon devices and integration of
functionalities on a single chip together with the availability of
inexpensive networking equipment has enabled an exponential
growth/development in data centers. Data centers are comput-
ing infrastructure facilities that house a large number of data-
processing servers and data storage equipment, with some of
the world’s data centers housing 200,000 servers or more, as il-
lustrated in Figure 1. With the advent of cloud computing, more
such large data centers are on the rise, requiring huge amounts
of electrical power for their operation. Due to their size and
numbers, data centers are beginning to have a noticeable impact
on the environment in view of their large energy consumption
and CO2 footprint, and thus sustainable development needs to
be considered for the future.
The energy usage of data centers in the United States was es-
timated to consume about 2% of the total electricity production
in 2010, which represents about 82 billion kWh at an annual
The Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI) contract
6862.2 DCS-NM entitled “Micro-Evaporation Cooling System for High Perfor-
mance Micro-Processors: Development of Prototype Units and Performance
Testing” directed by Professor Thome of the LTCM laboratory sponsored
this work along with the project’s industrial partners: IBM Zürich Research
Laboratory (Switzerland) and Embraco (Brazil). J. B. Marcinichen thanks
“Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nı́vel Superior” (CAPES)
for a one-year fellowship to work at the LTCM laboratory.
Address correspondence to Dr. Jackson B. Marcinichen, Laboratory of Heat
and Mass Transfer (LTCM), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL),
ME A0 394 (Bâtiment ME), Station 9, Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland. E-mail:
jackson.marcinichen@epfl.ch
434
increase in new energy generation capacity of 1%, data centers
will eventually consume all the available electrical energy in
the United States by 2030 [3] if this situation is allowed to go
ahead.
Higher processor speeds and miniaturization consequently
lead to a steady rise in the heat flux generated by the electron-
ics. Temperatures should not exceed a maximum of 85◦ C for
microprocessors during sustained operation, based on electri-
cal performance and material usage constraints. In this context,
Patel [4] highlighted two clear objectives for future thermo-
mechanical solutions: to facilitate effective heat transfer from
high-power-density chips and systems in order to maintain a
specified temperature on the device, and to facilitate more effi-
cient heat removal. Actually, a third objective, no less important
in magnitude, is to explore the potential for waste heat recovery.
Recent developments suggest primarily four competing tech-
nologies for the cooling of chips: microchannel single-phase
flow, porous media flow, jet impingement cooling, and mi-
crochannel two-phase flow boiling [5]. Leonard and Phillips
[6] showed that the use of such new technology for cooling
of chips could produce savings in energy consumption of over
60%. Agostini et al. [5] highlighted that the most promising of
the four technologies was microchannel two-phase cooling, due
to its low thermal resistance, low pumping power requirements,
and high heat removal capabilities. Figure 2 shows some typi-
cal microchannel coolers having channel widths in the range of
50 μm to 200 μm and fin heights ranging from 50 μm to 2 mm.
Single-phase microchannel chip cooling has its apparent ad-
vantage in that it is relatively easy to use. This technology is
 J. B. MARCINICHEN ET AL.
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Figure 1 Data-center size and information technology (IT) power requirements. (Color figure available online.)
currently being used in the recent Aquasar computer [7–9],
which is an IBM blade center converted to use of a water-cooled
cycle with water cooling elements designed by the LTCM lab
attached directly to the back side of the central processing unit
(CPU) dies. However, water has some notable disadvantages,
such as requiring a high pumping power, its high freezing point,
microbe formation, corrosive properties of ultra-clean water,
its electrical conductivity, and erosive properties at high fluid
velocities [10].
Two-phase microchannel flow takes advantage of the latent
heat of the fluid (an environmentally friendly refrigerant), which
Figure 2 Examples of typical microchannel coolers in copper and silicon.
(Color figure available online.)
heat transfer engineering
435
is much more effective in removing heat, with heat removal val-
ues using refrigerants over 300 W/cm2 being achieved [11]. It
has also been shown that heat fluxes of 180 W/cm2 can be re-
moved with a refrigerant saturation temperature as high as 60◦ C
(for facilitating waste heat recovery), while maintaining the chip
temperature below 85◦ C [12]. These results were obtained on
the evaporators depicted in Figure 2.
Another advantage of making use of on-chip cooling for the
cooling of data center servers is that the waste heat can easily
be reused elsewhere. This is because the heat removal process is
local to the server, thus minimizing any loss to the environment.
Consider a data center with 100,000 servers, each having a
heat generation rate of 300 W per server. This translates to 30
MW of heat that needs to be dissipated, which can potentially
be recovered. For servers running 24 h/day at a typical usage
level of 20% for 365 days/year, this translates to a total of 52.6
million kWh of energy consumption per year and heat to be
dissipated, which, at an average cost of 0.10 $/kWh, represents
a total annual value of $5.3 million.
The aim of this article is to provide an overview of microevap-
oration technology highlighting some thermohydraulic funda-
mentals of the flow in the microchannels and the application of
such technology to the cooling of data centers, which promises
to have a huge impact in minimization of energy consumption
and CO2 footprint. The potential for waste heat recovery due to
the enormous quantity of energy involved in such an application
will also be shown. Simulations and experimental results will be
provided to illustrate the benefits of applying such technology
in data centers and reuse of wasted heat by a small electrical
power plant.
vol. 34 nos. 5–6 2013
 436 J. B. MARCINICHEN ET AL.

MULTI-MICROCHANNEL ELEMENTS

General Fundamentals

Macroscale two-phase flow methods usually do not work

very well when compared to data for channels below about
2.0 mm diameter. This is because the distinguishing criteria,
such as the relative importance of the various hydrodynamic
forces, for example, inertia, viscosity, buoyancy, and surface
tension effects, all play an important role concerning the motion
of the liquid and vapor phases flowing in the conduit. These two-
phase flow pattern transitions when passing from macroscale to
microscale do not occur abruptly but in a gradual manner due
to the diminishing influence of the gravity forces when channel
confinement increases. While gravity plays an important role in
macroscale flows, it has less impact in the microscale due to the
increasingly stronger effect of surface tension.
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Figure 3 depicts the buoyancy effect on elongated bubbles

flowing in 2.0-, 0.790-, and 0.509-mm horizontal circular chan-
nels taken in the LTCM lab [13]. In the 2.0-mm channel, the
difference in liquid film thickness at the top compared to that
at the bottom of the bubble is very noticeable. Since the local
Figure 3 Video images of slug (elongated bubble) flow in 2.0-, 0.8-, and
heat transfer is primarily by conduction across such thin lam- 0.5-mm horizontal channels with HFC134a.
inar liquid films, the film thickness is the main resistance to
heat transfer and thus cooling, and therefore its variation around need to be determined to develop prediction methods. With the
the perimeter is an important thermal issue. Similarly, the film aid of high-speed videography (frame rates of up to 120,000
thickness in the 0.790-mm channel is still not uniform above digital images per second) and laser photo diode signals, it
and below the bubble. Instead, in the 0.509-mm channel, the is possible to record and characterize these regimes. Figure 4
film is now quite uniform. Interpreting these images and other shows a typical flow pattern map for HFC236fa inside a chan-
images, one also ascertains that in small, horizontal channels, nel having a diameter of 1.03 mm obtained by Ong and Thome
stratified types of flows (all vapor at top with liquid at the bot- [14]. The flow patterns are classified as isolated bubbles (mostly
tom) disappear. This transition is thus perhaps an indication of bubbles shorter in length than the channel diameter), coalescing
the lower boundary of macroscale two-phase flow, in this case bubbles (mostly bubbles much longer than the channel diam-
occurring for a diameter somewhat greater than 2.0 mm. The up- eter and coalescing due to their different axial velocities), and
per boundary of microscale two-phase flow may be interpreted annular flow (characterized by a thin liquid film on the channel
as the point at which the effect of gravity on the liquid–vapor perimeter with a high speed vapor core flow).
interface shape becomes insignificant, such that the uniformly
flowing bubble in the 0.509-mm channel is thus a microscale
flow, with the transition occurring at about this diameter.
Many of the controlling phenomena and heat transfer mech-
anisms change when passing from macroscale two-phase flow
and heat transfer to the microscale. For example, surface-tension
(capillary) forces become much stronger as the channel size di-
minishes, while gravitational forces are weakened. Or, for ex-
ample, many two-phase microchannel flows have laminar liquid
Reynolds numbers, whereas most macroscale methods are based
on turbulent two-phase flow data. Furthermore, the nucleate
boiling contribution of macroscale flow boiling is more or less
suppressed in microchannels. Based on this, it can be seen that it
is inappropriate (unreliable) to extrapolate macroscale research
results and methods to the microscale. Therefore, dedicated re-
search is required to investigate these microscale two-phase
flows and develop new models and methods to describe them.
Heat transfer and pressure drop mechanisms are strongly af- Figure 4 Three flow regimes shown on a flow pattern map [14]. (Color figure
fected by the type of flow patterns present in the channels, which available online.)

heat transfer engineering vol. 34 nos. 5–6 2013

 J. B. MARCINICHEN ET AL. 437

Microevaporators

Not only can two-phase microevaporators transfer large

quantities of heat, they are also ideally suited for cooling of
electronic hot spots (local heat fluxes on CPUs up to 400 W/cm2
or more) as heat transfer coefficients (thermal resistances) natu-
rally increase (decrease) over hot-spot locations in the flow boil-
ing process [15–17]. This suggests that electronics can have a
more uniform temperature with two-phase cooling and adverse
temperatures gradients are greatly diminished. Hence higher
clock speeds can potentially be utilized. The power require-
ments for removing the heat are also considerably lower than
that required for traditional air-cooling methods due to the much
larger heat-carrying capacity of an evaporating refrigerant with
respect to the specific heat of air.
Numerous other aspects of these microscale two-phase flows
Figure 5 Schematic of the liquid pumping cooling cycle. (Color figure avail-
are under investigation in the LTCM lab, such as micro-PIV
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to characterize flow (with or without flashing) through micro-
orifices as small as 15–25 μm, transient aspects of the two-phase
flow bubble coalescence process [18], time-strip analysis of
high-speed videos to discern information on the dryout process
and wave formation [19], flow pattern transition theory [14],
two-phase hot-spot cooling [17], critical heat flux [20], and so
on. All these aspects are focused solely on the microevaporator.
To see the actual effect on the cooling performance of a data
center, such on-chip microevaporators are analyzed in this study
as part of a complete two-phase cooling cycle to determine their
actual energetic characteristics.
A supplementary detailed discussion, including thermal de-
sign methods, on two-phase flow and heat transfer in microscale
channels can be found in the free web-book Wolverine Engineer-
ing Databook III of Thome [21].
TWO-PHASE MICROEVAPORATOR COOLING CYCLE:
COMPUTATIONAL AND EXPERIMENTAL
EVALUATIONS
able online.)
motor valves are used to control the flow rate through each ME
according to the flow requirements of each.
The vapor compression (VC) cycle (Figure 6) consists of a
variable speed vapor compressor together with a condenser, liq-
uid accumulator, internal heat exchanger, low-pressure receiver,
electronic expansion valve, and stepper motor valves prior to
each chip. After the variable-speed compressor (VSC) the flow
passes through three heat exchangers: the condenser, an inter-
nal heat exchanger (iHEx) and the low-pressure receiver (LPR).
This guarantees subcooling and superheating at the inlet of the
MEs and the VSC, respectively. The last two heat exchangers
also increase the performance of the cooling system [22, 23].
Expansion is ensured by an electric expansion valve (EEV) prior
to the fluid flowing through the SMV/ME/MPAE .
The Mollier diagrams for the two cooling cycles with re-
spect to HFC134a are given in Figures 7 and 8. To represent

Marcinichen et al. [22] proposed two cooling-cycle concepts

using multi-microchannel cooling technology to cool high heat
flux microprocessors within a server blade.1 The main difference
between the cycles is associated with the driver, being either a
liquid pump or a vapor compressor (Figures 5 and 6).
The liquid pumping (LP) cycle (Figure 5) consists of a liquid
pump, condenser, liquid accumulator, subcooler, and stepper
motor valves prior to each chip. The condenser is used to re-
move the latent heat gained from the boiling process in the
microevaporators (ME) and microchannel cold plates for auxil-
iary electronics (MPAE ), while the liquid accumulator (LA) and
subcooler ensure subcooled liquid enters the pump. The stepper

1A blade server is a server chassis housing multiple thin, modular electronic

circuit boards, known as server blades. Each blade is a server in its own right,
often dedicated to a single application. The blades are literally servers on a card, Figure 6 Schematic of the vapor compression cooling cycle. (Color figure
containing processors, memory, integrated network controllers, etc. available online.)

heat transfer engineering vol. 34 nos. 5–6 2013

 438 J. B. MARCINICHEN ET AL.

HFC134a cover the energy dissipated by the refrigerant in the condenser to

18.0 heat buildings, residences, district heating, and so on. More de-
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 tails regarding the control of the cycles can be found in reference
17.5 [24].
ME Computational Evaluation
17.0 2 MPAE
P, bar

60°C (16.82bar)
Pump Using an in-house simulation code written specifically for
0.5bar
16.5 4 3
this purpose, the cooling cycles were designed and evaluated
1 58.73°C under steady-state conditions. A small blade center with 32
(16.32bar)
microprocessors and their associated auxiliary electronics were
16.0 considered, giving a total heat load of 3700 W. The simulations
Subcooler Condenser
considered:
15.5
100 150 200 250 300 • 60◦ C microevaporator inlet temperature (liquid saturated).
h, kJ/kg • 95◦ C condensing temperature (vapor compression cycle) and
Figure 7 HFC134a P-h diagram showing the thermodynamic conditions for
an increase of 2◦ C in the microevaporator’s water temperature
Downloaded by [EPFL Bibliothèque] at 05:04 23 August 2013

specific points of the LP cycle. (Color figure available online.)
the thermodynamic conditions for illustration purposes, a 0.5-
bar pressure drop in the microevaporator was considered for
both the LP and VC cycles, with the LP cycle having a sat-
uration temperature of 60◦ C and the condensing and evapo-
rating temperatures for the VC cycle being 90◦ C and 60◦ C,
respectively.
The goal of these cycles is to control the chip temperature to
a preestablished level by controlling the inlet conditions of the
microevaporator (pressure, subcooling and mass flow rate). It
is imperative to keep the microevaporators outlet vapor quality
below that of the critical vapor quality, which is associated with
the critical heat flux (CHF). Due to this limitation, additional
latent heat is available for further evaporation, which can be
used by other low heat flux generating components in the server
blade (cooled by the MPAE ) not susceptible to CHF. Another
parameter that must be controlled is the condensing pressure
(condensing temperature). The aim, during the winter, is to re-
HFC134a
40
LPR iHEx
5 4 3 2
90°C (32.4bar)
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
P, bar
(liquid pumping cycle).
• 30% outlet vapor quality for the MEs (to avoid dryout under
critical heat flux conditions).
• HFC134a, HFO1234ze, and liquid water as the working fluids
to evaluate.
The idea was to compare the cycles with respect to their energy
consumption, size of condensers, and temperature of the sec-
ondary fluid (potential use for a secondary application making
use of the waste heat), assuming a pressure drop of 1.5 bars in
the entire cooling cycle. A design constraint was also imposed
on the condenser (tube-in-tube type), with the pressure drops in
the working and secondary fluids being limited to 0.05 and 1
bar, respectively.
The simulations were also based on the following assump-
tions:
• Steady-state flow and heat transfer.
• The flow is adiabatic throughout all piping.
• Isentropic pumping and compression.
• Isenthalpic expansion (adiabatic).
• Uniform heat load on the microprocessors (no hot spots).
• Uniform flow distribution in the manifold leading to the MEs
and within the MEs themselves.
• One-dimensional heat transfer in the ME, more detail of which
can be found in reference [25].
Table 1 shows a summary of the results obtained.

0.44°C (subcooling) LPR Even though the simulations considered isentropic pump-
ing and compression (ideal cases), huge differences in power
60°C (16.8bar) 7V consumption can be seen. If energy recovery is not taken into
6
1
7
iHEx Table 1 Simulation results
ME MPAE
LP cycle VC cycle

10 Working fluid HFC134a HFO1234ze Water HFC134a

100 150 200 250 300 350
h, kJ/kg Drivers’ pumping power [W] 6.4 7.9 35 746.5
Heat exchanger volume [cm3] 705 730 876 632
Figure 8 HFC134a P-h diagram showing the thermodynamic conditions for Secondary fluid temperature [◦ C] 48 47 53 90
specific points of the VC cycle. (Color figure available online.)

heat transfer engineering vol. 34 nos. 5–6 2013

 J. B. MARCINICHEN ET AL. 439

0.60 heat fluxes, transient cooling, and so on by Costa-Patry et al.

[15–17] and Madhour et al. [12], with simulations being per-
VC cooling cycle
0.55 formed by Olivier et al. [25]. However, in the present work only
Exergec efficiency, [-]

LP cooling cycle
uniform heat fluxes were considered. HFC134a was tested as
0.50 the working fluid and an oil free minicompressor and a gear
pump as drivers.
0.45 The full details of the system, its layout, uncertainties and
its controllability can be found in reference [24]. The main
0.40 focus here is to show an energetic and exergetic comparison
between both cooling cycles under steady state condition. Such
0.35
a comparison mainly evaluates the difference between the power
0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
consumption of the drivers and the available energy and exergy
Driver overall efficiency, [-]
in the condenser. The experimental condition selected for the
Figure 9 Exergetic efficiency versus driver overall efficiency. (Color figure comparison was that the input powers on pseudo chips 1 and 2
available online.) were 90 W (41.7 W/cm2) and 75 W (34.7 W/cm2), respectively,
typical of an existing IBM blade server. For the VC cycle, a post
consideration, the LP cycle is the best option. Higher pumping heater (125 W) was considered, which simulated the heat load of
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power (about five times) is also observed when water instead
of HFC134a or HFO1234ze is used as the working fluid. Heat
exchanger volume, which dominates the overall size of the sys-
tem, is also lower for the refrigerants. This implies a lower
initial investment cost for the two-phase system as well as a
more compact system. When energy recovery is of concern, the
higher exergy obtained by making use of the VC cycle would be
of particular interest, as the higher temperatures obtained would
be more attractive to the end user making use of the waste heat.
To better understand the exergetic point of view of the poten-
tial energy recovery, a simplified exergy analysis was developed
for both cycles considering HFC134a as the working fluid. The
aim was to evaluate the effect the driver’s overall efficiency has
on the exergetic efficiency of the cycles. Exergetic efficiency
was defined as the ratio between recovered (in the condenser)
and supplied (in the driver and blades) exergies. Figure 9 shows
the results, where it can be seen that the exergetic efficiency
increases when the overall driver efficiency increases. The VC
cooling cycle starts to become the best exergetic option after a
driver overall efficiency of about 67% is reached.
auxiliary electronics of servers (memories, DC/DC converters,
etc.).
Energy Analysis
Table 2 shows the results for the driver’s power consumption
and overall efficiency, the latter calculated as the ratio between
the isentropic pumping or compression and the electrical input
power. It also shows the two systems’ input and output energies
associated with components and piping and the thermodynamic
conditions in the condenser for the main and secondary working
fluids.
The results show that the driver input power for the VC sys-
tem is about six times higher than for the LP system. It is worth
observing that the driver has a low overall efficiency (defined
by the ratio between the isentropic pumping/compression power
and driver input power), which for the pump is mainly a result
of its inverter’s high energy consumption (about 10 W when the
Table 2 Results of the energy analysis for the LP and VC cycles

Energy in LP cycle VC cycle

Experimental Evaluation
Pump or compressor input power, W 17.42 102.12
The cooling cycles proposed previously were built and ex- Isentropic pumping or compression power, W 0.048 27.77
perimentally evaluated by investigating the cooling system’s Driver overall efficiency, % 0.28 27.19
Input power on the pseudo chips, W 164.47 164.51
energy consumption, exergetic efficiency, and controllability. Input power on the post heater, W 0 125.63
Two MEs in parallel (typical for server blades with two CPUs), SMV input power, W 0.49 0.95
assembled on pseudo CPU chips, each composed of 35 heaters Energy out LP cycle VC cycle
and temperature sensors (2.5 mm by 2.5 mm in size each) with
Heat transfer in the condenser, W 68.32 194.23
an area of 12 mm by 18 mm, were used. The MEs’ copper Heat loss in the driver, W 17.37 74.35
microchannel geometry consisted of 53 parallel microchannels Heat loss in the piping, W 96.68 124.63
having a height of 1.7 mm and a width of 0.17 mm, with the fins Energy recovery efficiency, % 37.5 49.4
between the channels also being 0.17 mm. The effective heat Thermodynamic conditions in the condenser
flux “footprint” areas of the MEs are 12 mm long (in the direc- Condensing temperature, ◦ C 59.96 80.48
Inlet water temperature, ◦ C 39.96 14.61
tion of flow) and 18 mm wide. The pseudo chip/ME assembly Outlet water temperature, ◦ C 49.32 65.04
has been extensively tested to study flow boiling heat transfer, Mass flow rate of water, kg/h 6.28 3.31
two-phase pressure drops, hot spot cooling with nonuniform
heat transfer engineering vol. 34 nos. 5–6 2013
 440 J. B. MARCINICHEN ET AL.

pump is not working) and also leakage and slip of HFC134a in Table 3 Exergetic analysis of the VC and LP cooling systems
the gears. The last two aspects are due to the low viscosity of
LP cycle VC cycle
the working fluid (123.61 μPa for HFC134a against 466.40 μPa
for water at 60◦ C), which is at the lower limit for the specified Exergy supplied, W 40.1 146.7
pump (hence a pump specifically designed for the liquid refrig- Exergy destroyed, W 35.2 136
Pump or compressor 17.4 74.4
erant would be advisable). This also justifies why the difference Condenser 3.5 21.4
in driver input power was higher for computational than for ME1 3.4 3.6
experimental evaluations, where the former did not consider the ME2 0.9 0.8
actual driver inefficiencies. Regarding the oil-free minicompres- Post heater — 9
sor, despite its high overall efficiency in its actual refrigerator iHEx — 1.3
LPR — 0.9
applications, it is unusually low here since it is operating at SMV 0.27 3.3
temperature considerably above its intended design conditions Piping 9.7 21.3
[26, 27]. Exergy recovered, W 4.9 10.7
It can also be seen that 50.6% and 62.5% of the VC and LP Exergetic efficiency 12.3 7.3
systems’ energy, respectively, is associated with heat losses. It Pump or compressor 0.03 27.2
Condenser 58.4 33.6
shows that improvements can be made to improve the overall ME1 72.6 70.7
performance of the system, mainly associated with the reduction
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ME2 90.7 91.1

of the driver and piping losses, and consequently this would lead
to an increase in the energy recovered in the condenser.
An obvious observation is that the higher secondary fluid
outlet temperature obtained for the VC system is due to its inher-
ently higher condensing temperature. This has a significant eco-
nomic impact, which will be discussed in the following section.
Exergy Analysis
The goal of the analysis is to determine, for each system, the
exergy supplied, recovered, and destroyed for a control volume
enclosing the cooling system. With this, the overall exergetic
efficiency, defined as the ratio between the recovered and sup-
plied exergies, can be determined. The exergetic efficiency of
each component is also evaluated.
The steady-state exergy rate balance is defined by the fol-
lowing expression [28]:
 T0
   in the piping. Figure 10 shows that the effect of overall driver
0= 1− Q̇ j − Ẇcv + ṁ i e f i − ṁ e e f e − Ėd
T j 
j i e
   rate of exergy
rate of exergy transfer destruction
The terms on the right side of the equality represent, respec-
tively, the exergy transfer accompanying heat and work, the rate
of exergy transfer accompanying mass flow and flow work and,
the rate of exergy destroyed. The dead state is defined as 295 K,
100 kPa for water and 295 K, 603.28 kPa and 50% of vapor
quality for HFC134a. Table 3 shows the results obtained.
Regarding the exergetic efficiency of the components con-
sidered in the cooling systems, the driver followed by the con-
denser showed the lowest values, which implies that to improve
the thermodynamic performance of the cooling systems these
components must be optimized in the design. Special attention
must also be given to the exergy destroyed in the piping, which
represents about 28% and 16% of the overall exergy destroyed
in the LP and VC systems, with the latter being the same order
of magnitude as that in the condenser. This implies that better
insulation of the test unit is required to minimize the exergy lost.
heat transfer engineering
Post heater — 59.3
iHEx — 78.8
LPR — 72.7
SMV — —
Piping — —
It can also be observed that there is a huge need to improve the
thermodynamic performance of the cooling systems, since only
an average of 10% of the supplied exergy is recovered.
To determine the effect of the overall efficiencies of the
drivers (the worst components in terms of exergetic efficiency)
on the overall exergetic efficiency of the systems, a thermody-
namic simulation was developed using experimental inputs from
the previous analysis. Additionally, the exergy destroyed by the
piping of the VC cycle was considered to be the same as that of
the LP cycle, that is, analogous to an improvement in the insu-
lation material so that both cycles have the same irreversibilities
(1) efficiency on the exergetic efficiency is much greater when us-
ing a VC as a driver. There is also a point where the exergetic
efficiency of the VC system surpasses that of the LP system (at
about 46%). Only after this point does the VC cooling system
become competitive with the LP cooling system on this basis
of comparison. This observation also correlates well with the
computational evaluation (Figure 9).
WASTE HEAT RECOVERY
A problem with recovering the heat of the data center is not
in the quantity but rather in the quality. The advantages of a two-
phase system become significant in a VC cycle when condenser
temperatures approach 90◦ C. The two potential cooling cycles
proposed and evaluated previously are investigated, that is, LP
cycle (maximum condensing temperature of 60◦ C) and VC cycle
(condensing temperature up to 100◦ C). As a potential user of the
waste heat, a coal-fired thermal power plant will be analyzed,
vol. 34 nos. 5–6 2013

0.35
VC cooling cycle
0.30
LP cooling cycle
Exergec efficiency, [-]
0.25
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
0 0.2 0.4 0.6
Driver overall efficiency, [-]
Figure 10 Exergetic efficiency versus driver overall efficiency. (Color figure
available online.)
since more than 41% of the world’s energy is produced from
Downloaded by [EPFL Bibliothèque] at 05:04 23 August 2013
this type of utility [29].
The case study is performed with a data center that uses the
on-chip cooling concept proposed and tested earlier to cool the
server blades. The heat removed is then redistributed to a power
plant to increase its efficiency. The power utility considered here
is a typical thermal regenerative Rankine cycle consisting of a
boiler, a high- and low-pressure turbine, a condenser, a low-
pressure and high-pressure feedwater pump, and a feedwater
heater. The feedwater heater receives heat from steam tapped
after the high-pressure turbine. The optimal pressure for tap-
ping the steam will be calculated to obtain maximum thermal
efficiency in each simulation. The data center waste heat will
be injected into the Rankine cycle after the condenser and prior
to the feedwater heater through an additional heat exchanger
(MHE). The two cycles (LP cycle and VC cycle) and the power
plant are illustrated schematically in Figure 11.
The analyses were based on the following idealized assump-
tions:
Figure 11 Coupling of the data center with a coal fired power plant. (Color
figure available online.)
heat transfer engineering
J. B. MARCINICHEN ET AL. 441
• No pressure drop and/or heat losses in the components and
piping.
• 60% isentropic efficiency for the compressor [26, 27].
• Isentropic pumping.
• Isenthalpic expansion.
• 1 K subcooling at the inlet of the pumps (minimum to avoid
cavitation).
• Heat load of 300 W per blade, 150 W from the chips and
150 W from the auxiliary electronics.
• 95% effectiveness for LPR and iHex [30–32].
• Outlet of the MHE in the data center side is saturated liquid
0.8 1
as it is assumed that this exchanger will be sized correctly.
• 100% effectiveness for the MHE.
The simulations were performed with the power plant cou-
pled either with the vapor compression cycle or the liquid pump-
ing cycle, both using HFC134a as a working fluid.
For these simulations, a “perfect match” was considered, that
is, for fixed condensing and evaporating temperatures (Tcond
and Tevap ), fixing the value of the number of blades in the data
center to match the size of the power plant (output of electricity
generation, Welec ) and vice versa. Additional information can
be found in reference [33].
For the power plant, the average working pressures were
taken from the literature [34] as follows: (i) the boiler operates
at a pressure of 16.55 MPa, with superheated vapor entering the
turbines at 800 K and (ii) the condensing pressure is set at 10
kPa, with subcooled liquid leaving the low pressure pump at a
temperature of 46◦ C (T6). Any heat added through the main heat
exchanger will then result in an increase of temperature from
T6 to T7 (Figure 11). The evaporating temperature (microevap-
orator and heat spreader-HS on the blades) will vary between
25◦ C and 60◦ C and the condensing temperature (in the MHE)
between 47◦ C and 90◦ C.
Data Center Cooling Cycle
The effects of the condensing and evaporating temperatures
on the data center power supply requirements (information tech-
nology IT + cooling system) are investigated for a data center
having 100,000 server blades (300 W per blade).
Figures 12 and 13 show the data center’s power supply re-
quirements as a function of the condensing and evaporating
temperatures, respectively, resulting from the two cooling cy-
cles (VC and LP). Also plotted, for perspective, are the results
if current air cooling technology (AC) were used, where it was
assumed that the cooling consumption is 45% that of the whole
data center’s consumption [35]. Figure 12 shows the effect the
condensing temperature has if the evaporating temperature were
fixed at 60◦ C, while Figure 13 shows the effect the evaporat-
ing temperature has if the condensing temperature were fixed at
90◦ C, both for the VC cycle. For the LP cycle the condensing
and evaporating temperatures were considered the same, that is,
negligible pressure drop.
vol. 34 nos. 5–6 2013
 442 J. B. MARCINICHEN ET AL.
Figure 12 Influence of condensing temperature (VC cycle: evaporating tem-
perature = 60◦ C). (Color figure available online.)
Downloaded by [EPFL Bibliothèque] at 05:04 23 August 2013
For the LP cycle, the condensing and evaporating tempera-
tures seem to have negligible influences on the data center power
supply. Such a result is associated with the very low power re-
quired to drive the pump. This results in a huge reduction in
the data center’s power supply (IT + LP), being on the order of
about 45% when compared with air cooling technology (IT +
AC).
For the VC cycle, the data center power supply requirement
decreases when the evaporating temperature increases and the
condensing temperature decreases. This result is expected since
the higher the temperature difference, the higher the pressure
difference becomes, resulting in more work required from the
compressor (far from the ideal cycle, i.e., Carnot cycle). The
savings in the data center power supply, for an evaporating tem-
perature of 60◦ C and a condensing temperature of 90◦ C, is about
35% when compared to air cooling technology. In summary, the
results show that when energy recovery is not taken into con-
sideration, the LP cycle is the better solution.
Figure 13 Influence of evaporating temperature (VC cycle: condensing tem-
perature = 90◦ C). (Color figure available online.)
heat transfer engineering
Figure 14 Influence of condensing temperature on power plant efficiency
(Tevap = 60◦ C). (Color figure available online.)
Power Utility
At this point, it would appear that the advantages of a liq-
uid pumping cycle outweigh that of a vapor compression cycle.
This, however, is only true if the data center were to be con-
sidered as a single entity. When energy recovery is involved,
though, the higher outlet exergy of the VC cycle is more of
a benefit for the secondary application, or power plant in our
case. This is shown in Figures 14 and 15, where the effects
of the condensing and evaporating temperatures on the power
plant efficiency are presented, respectively. The efficiency of the
power plant, without considering the energy recovered from the
data center, is 45.5%.
For a fixed evaporating temperature (60◦ C), Figure 14 shows
that a higher condensing temperature results in higher power
plant (PP) efficiency. The PP efficiency can be improved by
up to 3.7% if a VC were to be used (condensing temperature
of 90◦ C). By using a liquid pumping cycle in the data cen-
ter, a maximum of 60◦ C of condensing temperature can be
reached (limit used to avoid the maximum chip temperature
of 85◦ C [12]). When considering the effect of the evaporating
temperature (at 25◦ C), with the condensing temperature fixed
at 90◦ C, improvements of up to 6.5% are obtained, as shown in
Figure 15.
Figure 15 Influence of evaporating temperature on power plant efficiency
(Tcond = 90◦ C). (Color figure available online.)
vol. 34 nos. 5–6 2013
 J. B. MARCINICHEN ET AL. 443

The ideal case for using a LP cycle would be to couple a

100,000-server-blade data center to a 770-MW power plant,
resulting in the power plant’s efficiency increasing from 45.5%
to 46%. This is for a condensing temperature of 60◦ C. For the
VC cycle the maximum efficiency obtained would be 52%,
when evaporating and condensing temperatures of 25◦ C and
90◦ C are considered, respectively. For such a cycle, a 130-MW
power plant size is necessary. It is worth mentioning that the
reason for different sizes of power plant is associated with
the temperature of the heat available in the condenser and the
effectiveness of MHE—that is, a higher temperature implies
a lower water mass flow rate in the power plant to transfer all
heat available, so a smaller power plant size is necessary for a
fixed size of data center.

Figure 17 Influence of evaporating temperature on carbon footprint (Tcond =

Carbon Footprint
90◦ C). (Color figure available online.)
Downloaded by [EPFL Bibliothèque] at 05:04 23 August 2013

For the calculation of the carbon footprint, only the con-
tribution of the electricity used is considered. Further, of the
greenhouse gases, only CO2 will be considered as it contributes
more than 75% of all the greenhouse gases and is responsible
for most to the greenhouse effect.
Figures 16 and 17 show the total savings of CO2 (for the
power plant and data center) per megawatt of electricity pro-
duction. Again, the evaporating and condensing temperature
effects were evaluated. The CO2 savings were calculated for the
data center relative to air cooling technology and for the power
plant in terms of mass of CO2 consumed per kilowatt-hour pro-
duced. The specific consumption of the power plant without
considering data center energy recovery is 0.85 kg CO2 /kWh,
which was determined considering the power plant efficiency
(45.5%), the energy density (6.67 kWh/kg [36]), and mass of
CO2 per kg of coal (2.6 kg/kg [36–38]).
It can be observed that increasing the condensing tempera-
ture significantly increases the total amount of CO2 saved (see
Figure 16). However, the potential savings in CO2 are always
smaller with the LP cycle than with the VC cycle. A similar
analysis with a lower evaporating temperature in the VC cycle
shows higher potential savings in CO2 (Figure 17). This results
in 380 tons of CO2 savings (PP and DC) per megawatt of elec-
tricity production when using the LP cycle versus 1980 tons of
CO2 per MW for the VC cycle.
Monetary Savings
Figures 18 and 19 give the combined annual monetary sav-
ings for the data center/power plant as a function of the condens-
ing and evaporating temperatures, respectively. The monetary
savings of the data center was calculated with relation to tra-
ditional air cooling technology, which includes the savings in
energy costs by implementing a liquid pumping or vapor com-
pression cycle and the savings in carbon tax (this was assumed
to be $30/ton CO2 [39]). For the power plant the specific price to
produce 1 kWh of electricity was used, which considers the fuel
saved and the savings made in carbon tax. A value of $90/ton of
coal was used for fuel costs (average price from October 2008
to October 2010 [40]). The value obtained for a power plant

Figure 16 Influence of condensing temperature on carbon footprint (Tevap = Figure 18 Influence of condensing temperature on monetary savings (Tevap =
60◦ C). (Color figure available online.) 60◦ C). (Color figure available online.)

heat transfer engineering vol. 34 nos. 5–6 2013

 444 J. B. MARCINICHEN ET AL.

of HFC134a, which generates leakage and slip on the gears, re-

sulting in a very low overall performance of the particular gear
pump used (a pump designed especially for liquid refrigerants at
these operating conditions is desirable). The results also showed
that both systems could be thermodynamically improved since
only about 10% of the exergy supplied is in fact recovered in the
condenser in the present multipurpose plug-and-play setup, with
the main culprits being the drivers, the condenser, and piping
(insulation).
Finally, a case study on the potential energy savings ob-
tainable by a data center by implementing the present on-chip
cooling concept with waste heat recovery was performed. When
compared with traditional air-cooling systems, the energy con-
sumption of the data center, without considering energy recov-
ery, can be reduced by as much as 45% when using a liquid
Figure 19 Influence of evaporating temperature on monetary savings (Tcond
pumping cycle and by 35% when using a vapor compression
= 90◦ C). (Color figure available online.)
cycle. When the waste heat from the data center was recovered
Downloaded by [EPFL Bibliothèque] at 05:04 23 August 2013

by a thermal coal-fired power plant, better results were obtained

when a vapor compression cycle was considered; that is, poten-
without considering energy recovery from the data center is tial annual savings on the order of almost 2000 tons of CO2 /MW
$0.055 per kWh. and $160,000/MW were obtained. Making use of such a cycle
Figures 18 and 19 show that higher savings can be obtained also showed that a power plant’s overall efficiency could be
with VC cycle, at high condensing and low evaporating temper- improved by up to 6.5%.
atures, resulting in an increase of more than 5 times in mone-
tary savings, that is, $0.16 million/MW versus only $0.03 mil-
lion/MW when using an LP cycle. NOMENCLATURE
Finally, although the liquid pumping cycle was the better
performing cooling cycle regarding energy usage, due to the CPU central processing unit
higher temperatures achievable, the vapor compression cycle DC data center
has a larger impact on the overall CO2 and monetary savings EEV electric expansion valve
when the data center/power plant combination is considered. It Ėd rate of exergy destruction due to irreversibilities within
can also be said that the incentive for a power plant to cooperate the control volume, W
with a data center would be greater if a vapor compression cycle ėfi , ėfe inlet and outlet flow exergies, J/kg
were to be used. HS heat spreader
iHEx internal heat exchanger
IT information technology equipment
CONCLUSIONS LA liquid accumulator
LP liquid pump
Two specific on-chip two-phase cooling cycles were simu- LPR low pressure receiver
lated to cool microprocessors and auxiliary electronics of server LPS condenser liquid pump speed, rpm
blades. In total, four cases were simulated considering three dif- ME microevaporator
ferent working fluids: HFC134a, HFO1234ze, and water (in an MHE main heat exchanger
analogous single-phase cooling cycle). The results showed that MPAE microchannel cold plate for auxiliary electronics
the liquid water cooling cycle had a pumping power consump- ṁ i , ṁ e inlet and outlet mass flow rate, kg/s
tion 5.5 times that obtained for the two-phase HFC134a cooling PCV pressure control valve
cycle, both considering a liquid pump as the driver of the fluid. PP coal power plant
The simulation of the vapor compression cooling cycle showed Q̇ j heat transfer rate, W
higher energy consumption when compared with the other cy- RU rack unit
cles simulated. Experimental evaluations were performed in the SMV stepper motor valve
two on-chip two-phase cooling cycles built into a plug-and-play TCV temperature control valve
test bench of the LTCM lab. It was found that the power con- Tj instantaneous temperature, K
sumption of the LP driver was only 6 times lower than that of the TI integral time, s
VC driver, unlike the simulations, which showed much greater T0 dead state temperature, K
differences. The reason was especially due to the low viscosity VC vapor compressor

heat transfer engineering vol. 34 nos. 5–6 2013

 J. B. MARCINICHEN ET AL.
VSC variable-speed compressor
Ẇ cv energy transfer rate by work, W
Welec output of electricity generation, W
xo MEs’ outlet vapor quality, —
Greek Symbols
η efficiency
Subscripts
AE auxiliary electronics
comp vapor compressor
pump liquid pump
cond condensing
evap evaporating
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Jackson B. Marcinichen is a research post doc at the
Laboratory of Heat and Mass Transfer at the EPFL
(Lausanne-Switzerland) and has more than 15 years
experience in heating, ventilation, air conditioning,
and refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems. He received
his B.E. in mechanical engineering from the Federal
University of Santa Catarina, Brazil in 1996, and his
Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the same uni-
versity in 2006. He has authored more than 20 tech-
nical papers in journals, conferences, book chapters,
and U.S. patents. He has designed and evaluated several experimental facilities
characterizing the thermo- and hydrodynamic of cooling systems (calorimeters,
a wind tunnel, hybrid systems, etc.). Currently he is engaged in the development
of a new novel hybrid cooling system to cool high-performance microprocessors
using on-chip cooling.
Jonathan A. Olivier received his bachelor’s and
master’s degrees from the University of Johannes-
burg in 2002 and 2003 and his Ph.D. degree in me-
chanical engineering from the University of Pretoria,
South Africa, in 2009. He worked as a research sci-
entist at the Laboratory of Heat and Mass Transfer
(LTCM), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lau-
sanne (EPFL), Switzerland, from 2008 to 2011 with
his main research area being microchannel two-phase
refrigerant cooling for high heat flux applications. His
other research interests are single-phase flow and heat transfer inside enhanced
macroscale tubes in the transition regime, as well as single- and two-phase flow
and heat transfer in microchannels. He has authored and co-authored 22 publi-
cations consisting of journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers in
these areas.
Nicolas Lamaison received his master’s degree in
energy from the National Institute of Applied Sci-
ences (INSA) in Lyon, France, in 2010. He is cur-
rently a Ph.D. student in the Laboratory of Heat and
Mass Transfer (LTCM) at the Swiss Federal Insti-
tute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). His current
research interests are two-phase on-chip cooling sys-
tems for high performance electronics and its ap-
plication in energy recovery when implemented in
large-scale data centers.
John R. Thome has been working at the Swiss Fed-
eral Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) since
1998, where he is a director of the Laboratory of
Heat and Mass Transfer (LTCM) and the director of
the Doctoral Program in Energy (EDEY). He received
his Ph.D. in engineering science at Oxford University
in 1978 and worked as an assistant/associate profes-
sor in the United States for 5 years at Michigan State
University. He worked full-time as a consulting en-
gineer for 15 years from 1984 through 1998 with his
own firm. He has more than 150 journal papers since joining the EPFL and has
written 4 widely used books. His current main areas of research are two-phase
flow and heat transfer in microchannels, cooling systems for high heat flux
sources, and energy recovery systems. All this research has a total funding of
over $2 million annually.
vol. 34 nos. 5–6 2013