Patent Application
20140069616
This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority of the prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2012-197274 filed on Sep. 7, 2012, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The embodiment discussed herein is related to a cooling system including a pump group that circulates a cooling medium to cool a part.
Conventionally, a cooling system that circulates a cooling medium by a pump for a cooling target has been known (for example, see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 56-81287 and No. 2010-211363).
In a cooling system illustrated in
A first power supply 231 (DDC #0:DC-DC converter) supplies electric power to the pumps 211-216 of the first pump group. A second power supply 232 (DDC #1:DC-DC converter) supplies electric power to the pumps 221-226 of the second pump group 220.
According to an aspect of the embodiment, a cooling system including a first pump group including a plurality of pumps that circulates a cooling medium to cool a first part; a second pump group including a plurality of pumps that circulates a cooling medium to cool a second part; a first power supply that supplies electric power to a part of the pumps of the first pump group and a part of the pumps of the second pump group; and a second power supply that supplies electric power to another part of the pumps of the first pump group and another part of the pumps of the second pump group is provided.
The object and advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the claims.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are not restrictive of the invention.
In a pump power supply configuration of the cooling system according to the reference art illustrated in
It is possible to prevent the breakage of the circulation cooling system by stopping the power supply to the heat-generating element in a short time by monitoring the number of pump rotations and detecting the power supply breakdown. However, in a server apparatus for example, sudden stopping of a heat-generating part (a CPU and the like) leads to loss of processing data and destruction of data of the HDD (Hard Disk Drive) apparatus. In such a case, there is a problem that it leads to a decrease in the system reliability.
Hereinafter, a cooling system according to an embodiment is explained with reference to the drawings.
The cooling system 1 includes a first pump group 10, a second pump group 20, a first power supply 31, a second power supply 32, a circulation path 40, a heat exchanger 50, a fan 60, a first heat receiving unit 71 and a second heat receiving unit 72.
The first pump group 10 includes first-sixth 6 pumps 11-16 being six units (an example of a plurality) of pumps. While the details are described later, the first-sixth pumps 11-16 of the first pump group 10 circulates a cooling medium R to cool a first part 101 of which example is a heat-generating part such as a CPU mounted on a circuit board in the circulation path 40.
In a similar manner, in the second pump group 20, first-sixth pumps 21-26 being six units (an example of a plurality) of pumps circulate a cooling medium R to cool a second part 102 of which example is a heat-generating part such as a CPU mounted on a circuit board in the circulation path 40.
The first pump group 10 and the second pump group 20 may be mounted on a circuit board on which the first part 101 and the second part 102 are mounted.
As illustrated in
A second power supply 32 (DDC #1:DC-DC converter) supplies electric power (Vo#1) to a fourth-sixth pumps 14-16 (PUMP04-06) being an example of other pumps of the first pump group 10, and fourth-sixth pumps 24-26 (PUMP 24-26) being an example of other pumps of the second pump group 20.
The circulation path 40 forms a flow path to let the cooling medium R go through the first pump group 10, the second pump group 20, and a first heat receiving unit 71 that receives heat generated from the first part 101, and a second heat receiving unit 72 that receives heat generated from the second part 102.
The circulation path 40 branches into a branch path 41 that goes through the first heat receiving unit 71 and a second branch path 42 that goes through the second heat receiving unit 72, being an example of a plurality of branch paths. The branching position is, preferably, on the way from the heat exchanger 50 towards the first part 101 and the second part 102.
The first pump group 10 is arranged in parallel in the first branch path 41, and the second pump group 20 is arranged in parallel in the second branch path 42. The first branch path 41 and the second branch path 42 of the circulation path 40 merges after going through the first heat receiving unit 71 and the second heat receiving unit 72, respectively, and form a flow path that leads to the heat exchange 50.
The first pump group 10 is located, in the first branch path 41, between the heat exchanger 50 and the heat receiving unit 71. Meanwhile, the second pump group 20 is located, in the second branch path 42, between the heat exchanger 50 and the second heat receiving unit 72.
The heat exchanger 50 releases the heat of the cooling medium R by air blow from a fan 60, for example. The cooling medium is a fluid for example.
The first heat receiving unit 71 is provided on the first part 101, and receives heat generated from the first part 101. The first part 101 is cooled with the first heat receiving unit 71 being cooled by the cooling medium R of the first branch path 41 of the circulation path 40.
The second heat receiving unit 72 is provided on the second part 102, and receives heat generated from the second part 102. The second part 102 is cooled with the second heat receiving unit 72 being cooled by the cooling medium R of the second branch path 42 of the circulation path 40.
According to this, the low-temperature cooling medium R (L) of which heat is released by the heat exchanger 50 becomes the high-temperature cooling medium R (H) represented by halftone dots in
First, as in the cooling system according to the reference art (comparison example) illustrated in
In the case of this reference art, when the first power supply 231 or the second power supply 232 (DDC in
Next, as in the cooling system 1 according to the present embodiment illustrated in
In this case of the present embodiment, even when the first power supply 31 or the second power supply 32 (DDC in
As described above, when the first power supply 31 and the second power supply 32 have a breakdown, the breakage of the first part 101 and the second part 101 may be delayed with a fewer number of pumps stopped. Therefore, it is preferable that the number of pumps (in the present embodiment, three units) of the first pump group 10 to which the first power supply 31 supplies electric power and the number of pumps (in this example, three units) of the second pump group 20 to which the first power supply 31 supplies electric power are the same or different by one.
Meanwhile, it is preferable that the number of pumps (in the present embodiment, three units) of the first pump group 10 to which the second power supply 32 supplies electric power and the number of pumps (in this example, three units) of the second pump group 20 to which the second power supply 32 supplies electric power are the same or different by one.
Accordingly, when the first power supply 31 and the second power supply 32 have a breakdown, the maximum value of the number of stopped pump units in the first pump group 10 and the second pump group 20 may be reduced, and the breakage of the first part 101 and the second part 102 may be delayed.
In the present embodiment described above, the first pump group 10 includes a plurality of pumps 11-16 that circulate the cooling medium R to cool the first part 101, and the second pump group 20 includes a plurality of pumps 21-26 that circulate the cooling medium R to cool the second part 102. The first power supply 31 supplies electric power to a part of pumps 11-13 of the first pump group 10 and a part of pumps 21-23 of the second pump group 20. The second power supply 32 supplies electric power to another part of pumps 14-16 of the first pump group 10 and another part of pumps 24-26 of the second pump group 20.
Accordingly, it is possible to prevent the stop of all the pumps of the first pump group 10 and or the second pump group 20 when the first power supply 31 or the second power supply 32 has a breakdown, and to suppress the rapid rise of the temperature of the temperature of the cooling medium R, and thus the temperature of the part 101 and the part 102.
Therefore, according to the present embodiment, the time at the time of breakdown of the first power supply 31 or the second power supply 32 until the first pat 101 and the second part 102 cooled by the cooling medium R are broken may be extended. Accordingly, the reliability of the cooling system 1 improves, as, for example, the first part 101 and the second part 102 may be stopped safely using the extended time. In addition, since the reliability of the cooling system 1 may be improved without making the power supply redundant, the layout space of mounted parts is increased, and high-density mounting also becomes possible.
Meanwhile, in the present embodiment, the circulation path 40 forms a flow path to let the cooling medium R go through the first pump group 10, the second pump group 20, the first heat receiving unit 71 and the second heat receiving unit 72, and branches into a plurality of branch paths including the first branch path 41 that goes through the first heat receiving unit 71, and the second branch path 42 that goes through the second heat receiving unit 72. The first pump group 10 is arranged in parallel in the first branch path 41, and the second pump group 20 is arranged in parallel in the second branch path 42. Therefore, the time until the first part 101 and the second part 102 are broken may be extended with a simple configuration. Therefore, a higher-density mounting is also possible.
Meanwhile, in the present embodiment, the circulation path 40 branches into a plurality of branch paths 41, 42 on the way from the heat exchanger 50 towards the first heat receiving unit 71 and the second heat receiving unit 72. The first pump group 10 is located between the heat exchanger 50 and the first heat receiving unit 71, and the second pump group 20 is located between the heat exchanger 50 and the second heat receiving unit 72. For this reason, the first pump group 10 and the second pump group 20 are able to circulate the cooling medium R at the position where the low-temperature cooling medium R(L) of which heat is released by the heat exchanger 50 goes through, and the durability of the first pump group 10 and the second pump group 20 may be improved. Therefore, the reliability of the cooling system 1 is further improved.
Meanwhile, in the present embodiment, the number of pumps of the first pump group 10 to which the first power supply 31 supplies electric power and the number of pumps of the second pump group 20 to which the first power supply 31 supplies electric power are the same (or different by one). The number of pumps of the first pump group 10 to which the second power supply 32 supplies electric power and the number of pumps of the second pump group 20 to which the second power supply 32 supplies electric power are the same (or different by one). For this reason, when the first power supply 31 and the second power supply 32 have a breakdown, the maximum value of the number of stopped pump units in the first pump group 10 and the second pump group 20 may be reduced, and the time until the first part 101 and the second part 102 are broken may be extended.
Meanwhile, in the present embodiment, the cooling system 1 includes two pump groups in total, the first pump group 10 that circulates the cooling medium R to cool the first part 101 and the second pump group 20 that circulate the cooling medium R to cool the second part 102. However, the cooling system 1 may also be configured to include three or more pump groups such as a third pump group that circulates the cooling medium R to cool a third part.
Meanwhile, while the cooling system 1 includes the first power supply 31 and the second power supply 32 in the present embodiment, three or more power supplies may be included such as a third power supply that supplies a part of pumps of the first pump group 10 and a part of pumps of the second pump group 20.
Meanwhile, while the number of power supplies 31, 32 is the same as the number of the pump groups 10, 20, the number of the power supplies may be larger than the number of the pump groups, and vice versa, the number.
All examples and conditional language provided herein are intended for the pedagogical purposes of aiding the reader in understanding the invention and the concepts contributed by the inventor to further the art, and are not to be construed as limitations to such specifically recited examples and conditions, nor does the organization of such examples in the specification relate to a showing of the superiority and inferiority of the invention. Although one or more embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail, it should be understood that the various changes, substitutions, and alterations could be made hereto without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-197274 | Sep 2012 | JP | national |
