Patent Application
20250123020
This application claims priority to Korean Patent Application No. 10-2023-0136992 (filed on Oct. 13, 2023), which is all hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
The present disclosure relates to an airflow control technology and, more specifically, to an air flow-based cooling device capable of improving cooling efficiency of a heat-generating object and reducing cooling energy consumption through convective circulation cooling achieved by airflow control.
Fine dust significantly affects our daily lives, not only at industrial sites but also in places like subways. Among the various alternatives for the effective reduction of fine dust, ‘airflow control technology’ is gaining attention.
Airflow control technology applied to manufacturing sites is a method that effectively removes airborne emissions by controlling the air flow inside the factory. Various emissions generated during the production process are a major cause of productivity and quality loss as the emissions adhere to equipment and products.
The emissions also hinder the ability to respond to increasingly stringent environmental regulations and jeopardize the health and safety of workers on site. Therefore, there is an active movement to apply airflow control technology to each factory.
Meanwhile, the present applicant proposes an airflow control technology for Internet data centers (IDCs) that may reduce power consumption by at least 30% compared to existing systems. The airflow control technology for IDCs manages fine dust by creating an air circulation structure without blind spots in consideration of the appropriate operating temperature of GPUs and CPUs in the data center. With optimal airflow design, it may be expected to reduce power usage by at least 30% compared to existing systems.
The present disclosure provides an air flow-based cooling device capable of improving cooling efficiency of a heat-generating object and save cooling energy through convective circulation cooling by controlling airflow.
The present disclosure also provides an air flow-based cooling device designed to generate air circulation and direct an airflow to pass through a heat-generating object, thereby maximizing heat dissipation performance through the even distribution of cooling airflow.
The present disclosure also provides an air flow-based cooling device capable of flexibly responding to equipment maintenance and expansion with a detachable structural design.
In one aspect, an air flow-based cooling device includes: a vertically stacked cell string formed by vertically stacking a plurality of cells, each of the plurality of cells having a heat-generating object installed therein; an air intake pipe installed to vertically penetrate one end of the vertically stacked cell string and generate a first vertical air flow through an intake splitter installed at an air inlet and distribute the first vertical air as a horizontal flow through an intake opening in each of the plurality of cells, thereby generating a horizontal air flow; an air discharge pipe installed to discharge the horizontal air through a discharge opening in each of the plurality of cells and vertically penetrate the other end of the vertically stacked cell string to generate a second vertical air flow using the horizontal air through a discharge splitter installed in an air outlet; an air intake duct connected to one end of the air intake pipe and providing the first vertical air to the intake splitter; and an air discharge duct connected to one end of the air discharge pipe and receiving the second vertical air from the discharge splitter.
By placing the intake opening at a contact point of the air intake pipe in each of the plurality of cells and the discharge opening at a contact point of the air discharge pipe, the vertically stacked cell string may be designed to generate circulation of the first and second vertical airs, with the intake opening and the discharge opening to face each other.
The vertically stacked cell string may have the air intake pipe and the air discharge pipe arranged at central opposing points of the plurality of cells to allow the horizontal air flow to pass through the heat-generating object.
The air discharge pipe may be designed with a uniform divided bottom area for the discharge splitter to consistently maintain the second vertical air flow inside the air discharge pipe.
The air intake pipe may decrease in area in a stepwise manner at cell connection points from a topmost cell to a bottommost cell among the plurality of cells, thereby generating the first vertical air flow.
The air discharge pipe may be designed with a uniform divided bottom area of the discharge splitter to consistently maintain the second vertical air flow inside the air discharge pipe.
The air discharge pipe may have a larger horizontal air discharge area at the topmost cell than at the bottommost cell among the plurality of cells.
The air intake duct and the air discharge duct may regulate a circulation speed of the first and second vertical airs by controlling a first pressure to push the first vertical air and a second pressure to draw in the second vertical air.
The disclosed technology may have the following effects: However, it should not be understood that a specific embodiment must include all of the following effects or only the following effects, and thus the scope of the disclosed technology should not be construed as being limited thereby.
An air flow-based cooling device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure may improve the cooling efficiency of a heat-generating object and save cooling energy through convective circulation cooling by controlling airflow.
The air flow-based cooling device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure may be designed to generate air circulation and direct an airflow to pass through a heat-generating object, thereby maximizing heat dissipation performance through the even distribution of cooling airflow.
The air flow-based cooling device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure may flexibly respond to equipment maintenance and expansion with a detachable structural design.
A description of the present disclosure is merely an embodiment for a structural or functional description and the scope of the present disclosure should not be construed as being limited by an embodiment described in a text. That is, since the embodiment can be variously changed and have various forms, the scope of the present disclosure should be understood to include equivalents capable of realizing the technical spirit. Further, it should be understood that since a specific embodiment should include all objects or effects or include only the effect, the scope of the present disclosure is limited by the object or effect.
Meanwhile, meanings of terms described in the present application should be understood as follows.
The terms “first,” “second,” and the like are used to differentiate a certain component from other components, but the scope of should not be construed to be limited by the terms. For example, a first component may be referred to as a second component, and similarly, the second component may be referred to as the first component.
It should be understood that, when it is described that a component is “connected to” another component, the component may be directly connected to another component or a third component may be present therebetween. In contrast, it should be understood that, when it is described that an element is “directly connected to” another element, it is understood that no element is present between the element and another element. Meanwhile, other expressions describing the relationship of the components, that is, expressions such as “between” and “directly between” or “adjacent to” and “directly adjacent to” should be similarly interpreted.
It is to be understood that the singular expression encompasses a plurality of expressions unless the context clearly dictates otherwise and it should be understood that term “include” or “have” indicates that a feature, a number, a step, an operation, a component, a part or the combination thereof described in the specification is present, but does not exclude a possibility of presence or addition of one or more other features, numbers, steps, operations, components, parts or combinations thereof, in advance.
In each step, reference numerals (e.g., a, b, c, etc.) are used for convenience of description, the reference numerals are not used to describe the order of the steps and unless otherwise stated, it may occur differently from the order specified. That is, the respective steps may be performed similarly to the specified order, performed substantially simultaneously, and performed in an opposite order.
If it is not contrarily defined, all terms used herein have the same meanings as those generally understood by those skilled in the art. Terms which are defined in a generally used dictionary should be interpreted to have the same meanings as the meanings in the context of the related art, and are not interpreted as ideal meanings or excessively formal meanings unless clearly defined in the present application.
Referring to
The air supply device 110 may supply air to the cooling device 130. The supply device 110 may supply outdoor air to the cooling device 130. Here, the air supply device 110 may perform an air purification function to purify air before supplying the air. In one embodiment, the air supply device 110 may use centrifugal force to remove foreign substances included in the air and supply purified air to the cooling device 130.
The cooling device 130 may be installed in a predetermined space where a heat-generating object is present and may be connected between the air supply device 110 and the exhaust device 150. Here, the predetermined space may correspond to a data center where data is stored and managed, but is not necessarily limited to this, and may be any space that requires cooling of the heat emitted by equipment. For example, data centers require cooling systems to cool the heat emitted by Information & Communications Technology (ICT) equipment that operates 24 hours a day, every day. In one embodiment, the cooling device 130 may cool the heat emitted by heat-generating ICT equipment by controlling the flow of supplied pure outdoor air, thereby reducing power consumption by 30% to 50% compared to conventional cooling methods that use refrigerant compression and expansion. The cooling device 130 may improve cooling efficiency through air flow and heat dissipation.
The exhaust device 150 may dissipate air from the cooling device 130 to an outside. To this end, the exhaust device 150 may include an exhaust fan. The exhaust device 150 may dissipate heat from the cooling device 130 to the outside.
Referring to
The vertically stacked cell string 210 may be formed by vertically stacking a plurality of cells 211. Each of the plurality of cells 211 may have a heat-generating object 310 installed therein. Here, the vertically stacked cell string 210 is illustrated as being formed in three layers by vertically stacking three cells 211, but is not necessarily limited thereto. The cooling device 130 may increase a cooling space by horizontally arranging at least one vertically stacked cell string 210. For example, a plurality of vertically stacked cell strings 210 may be arranged side by side to form a matrix. Each of the plurality of cells 211 may have the heat-generating object 310 installed in an internal space. Here, the heat-generating object 310 may correspond to each piece of equipment that dissipates heat. For example, if the installation space of the cooling device 130 is a computer data center, electronic equipment such as a server room or server rack within the data center may correspond to the heat-generating object 310.
In one embodiment, the vertically stacked cell string 210 may form an air circulation structure by providing openings that penetrate the interior on both sides of each of the plurality of cells 211. Each of the plurality of cells 211 may have an intake opening for air intake on one side and a discharge opening for air discharge on the other side. The inlet and discharge openings may be designed to face each other. Additionally, as shown in
The air intake pipe 230 may be installed to vertically penetrate one end of the vertically stacked cell string 210. The air intake pipe 230 may generate a first vertical air flow through an intake splitter 231 installed at an air inlet and distribute the first vertical air as a horizontal flow through an intake opening in each of the plurality of cells 211, thereby generating a horizontal air flow. The intake splitter 231 is installed at the air inlet to divide the air and guide the air flow. Here, the intake splitter 231 may split the air entering the air intake pipe 230 and direct the split air to the intake openings in each of the plurality of cells 211, thereby converting the vertical air flow into a horizontal flow.
The air intake pipe 230 may be designed with a uniform divided bottom area of each intake splitter 231 to consistently maintain the first vertical air flow inside the air intake pipe 230. In addition, the air intake pipe 230 may decrease in area in a stepwise manner at the cell connection points from the topmost cell to the bottommost cell among the plurality of cells 211, thereby generating the first vertical air flow.
The air discharge pipe 250 may be installed to discharge the horizontal air through a discharge opening in each of the plurality of cells 211 and vertically penetrate the other end of the vertically stacked cell string 210. Using the horizontal air, the air discharge pipe 250 may generate a second vertical air flow through a discharge splitter 251 installed at the air outlet. The discharge splitter 251 is installed at the air outlet to guide the vertical flow of the horizontal air in each of the plurality of cells 211. Here, the discharge splitter 251 may direct the air in the discharge opening of each of the plurality of cells 211 toward the air discharge pipe 250, thereby converting the horizontal air flow into a vertical flow.
The air discharge pipe 250 may be designed with a uniform divided bottom area of each discharge splitter 251 to consistently maintain the second vertical air flow inside the air discharge pipe 250. In addition, the air discharge pipe 250 may have a larger horizontal air discharge area at the topmost cell than at the bottommost cell among the plurality of cells 211. In one embodiment, the air discharge pipe 250 may be formed such that all or some of the plurality of cells 211 have air discharge horizontal areas of different sizes. Here, the air discharge pipe 250 may be formed such that the plurality of cells 211 have the same height but varying widths. For example, the air discharge pipe 250 may also form a discharge flow by adjusting a width thereof toward the upper cells among the plurality of cells 211, thereby increasing the horizontal air discharge area to form a discharge flow. The air discharge pipe 250 may also form a discharge flow by adjusting a width thereof at each cell connection point from the bottommost cell to the topmost cell among the plurality of cells 211, thereby gradually increasing the horizontal air discharge area in a stepwise manner.
The intake splitter 231 and the discharge splitter 251 may each be formed in a hollow polyhedral shape, for example, a hollow hexahedron with a trapezoidal cross-section, where the cross-sectional area gradually increases toward the air inlet and air outlet. The intake splitter 231 and the discharge splitter 251 may be internally partitioned to guide an air flow direction.
The air intake duct 270 may be connected to one end of the air intake pipe 230 to provide the first vertical air to the intake splitter 231. The air intake duct 270 may be connected to the supply device 110 to receive purified external air from the air supply device 110. The air intake duct 270 may be connected in a straight line with the air intake pipe 230 through one end of the air intake pipe 230, thereby providing the purified external air to the air intake pipe 230 as the first vertical air.
The air discharge duct 290 may be connected to one end of the air discharge pipe 250 to receive the second vertical air from the discharge splitter 251. The air discharge duct 290 may be connected to the exhaust device 150 to discharge the second vertical air to the outside. Here, the second vertical air may correspond to high-temperature air including the heat emitted by the heat-generating object 310. The air discharge duct 290 may discharge the high-temperature air to the outside through the exhaust device 150.
The air intake duct 270 and the air discharge duct 290 may regulate a circulation speed of the first and second vertical airs by controlling a first pressure to push the first vertical air and a second pressure to draw in the second vertical air.
The cooling device 130 with such a configuration may perform a cooling operation in an air flow-based convective circulation manner.
Specifically, the cooling device 130 connects the air intake duct 270 and air discharge duct 290 to the supply device 110 and exhaust device 150, respectively. The air intake duct 270 receives purified external air from the supply device 110 and pushes the purified external air toward the air intake pipe 230 at the first pressure, providing the first vertical air to the intake splitter 231 installed at the air inlet. The intake splitter 231 generates a flow of the first vertical air within the air intake pipe 230. The first vertical air flowing through the air intake pipe 230 is distributed to an intake opening of each of the plurality of cells 211 that are in contact with the air intake pipe 230, thereby generating a horizontal air flow toward the opposing discharge opening. The horizontal air flow generated in each of the plurality of cells 211 cools the heat-generating object 310 installed in each cell. The cooling device 130 forms an air flow without any blind spots in each cell 211, thereby improving cooling efficiency. The horizontal air flowing out into the air discharge pipe 250 through the discharge opening in each of the plurality of cells 211 creates a second vertical air flow through the discharge splitter 251 installed at the air outlet. The air discharge duct 290 draws in the second vertical air flowing through the air discharge pipe 250 at a second pressure and discharges the second vertical air to the outside through the exhaust device 150.
Referring to
In addition, the cooling device 130 may be implemented so that the air intake duct 270 and the air discharge duct 290, which are respectively connected to one ends of the air intake pipe 230 and the air discharge pipe 250, are also detachable. If the cooling device 130 increases the number of vertically stacked cell strings 210 due to equipment expansion, the air intake duct 270 and air discharge duct 290, connected to the air intake pipe 230 and air discharge pipe 250 at both ends of each of the extended vertically stacked cell strings 210, may be easily mounted.
The air flow-based cooling device according to an embodiment may cool each of the plurality of cells, directly introducing an air flow to each cell to remove the heat from the equipment in a convective circulation manner, thereby maximizing heat dissipation performance through convection. Also, the air flow-based cooling device may operate a supply air temperature at a level of outdoor air, allowing a cooling system to increase a discharge temperature of a cooler and reduce a cooler capacity. Moreover, the vertically stacked cell string and the air intake duct are designed in a detachable structure relative to the air intake pipe, enabling a flexible response to equipment maintenance and expansion.
Although the present disclosure has been described above with reference to preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications and changes may be made to the present disclosure without departing from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure as set forth in the claims below.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-2023-0136992 | Oct 2023 | KR | national |
