Compact heat exchanger and method
A compact heat exchanger increases the cooling capacity within existing sizes of electronics cabinets. The heat exchanger includes a core having multiple thermally conductive members defining internal and external pathways. The internal pathways define inlets for receiving fluid from and outlets for passing fluid to the inside of the enclosure. The external pathways define inlets for receiving fluid from and outlets for passing fluid to the outside of the enclosure. The heat exchanger further includes an external pathway fluid driving mechanism coupled to the core in fluid flow relationship with the external pathways that causes fluid to flow in a first direction through the external pathways and an internal pathway fluid driving mechanism coupled to the core in fluid flow relationship with the internal pathways that causes fluid to flow in a second direction through the internal pathways in a manner facilitating heat exchange by the multiple thermally conductive members.
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Most electronics cabinets include cooling systems that cool electronics in the electronics cabinets by blowing external air in a manner cooling the electronics. As demand for high speed Internet services increases, electronics cabinets are equipped with additional electronics. As a result, the electronics dissipate heat within the electronics cabinets beyond the capacity of the cooling systems. Current techniques for increasing the cooling capacity to address the increased heat dissipation, however, are insufficient without increasing the size of the cooling systems. As a result, either the size or amount of electronics must be reduced, which may not be possible, leads to a second electronics cabinet, or the size of the electronics cabinet is increased to accommodate the electronics and increased size of the cooling system.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONTo increase the cooling capacity within existing sizes of electronics cabinets, a heat exchanger assembly with compact volume is placed within or externally attached to the electronics cabinet. The heat exchanger assembly includes a heat exchanger core with multiple thermally conductive members defining “internal” and “external” pathways. The internal pathways include inlets to draw fluid, such as air, from inside the electronics cabinet and outlets to exhaust fluid to inside the electronics cabinet. The external pathways include inlets to draw fluid from outside the electronics cabinet and outlets to exhaust fluid to outside the electronics cabinet. An external pathway fluid driving mechanism is coupled to the core in fluid flow relationship with the external pathways and causes air to flow in a first direction through the external pathways in the core. An internal pathway fluid driving mechanism is coupled to the core in fluid flow relationship with the internal pathways and causes air to flow in a second direction through the internal pathways in the core in a manner facilitating heat exchange by the multiple thermally conductive members.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGSThe foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following more particular description of preferred embodiments of the invention, as illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which like reference characters refer to the same parts throughout the different views. The drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention.
A description of preferred embodiments of the invention follows.
Electronics cabinets are being equipped with additional electronics to meet the increased demand for high speed Internet services, such as Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). As a result, the electronics dissipate heat within the electronics cabinets beyond the capacity of existing cooling systems. Embodiments of the heat exchanger design, some of which are described herein below, maximize the total surface area of thermally conductive members to increase a heat transfer surface area by two to five times over existing heat exchanger designs for the same volume. The efficiency of a heat exchanger is generally directly proportional to the total surface area of the thermally conductive members. Therefore, the heat exchanger design in some embodiments is two times more efficient than existing cooling systems having the same volume without increasing the size of the electronics cabinet.
The electronics cabinet 5 includes an external pathway inlet plenum 15a through which fluid, such as air, from outside of the electronics cabinet 5 enters external pathways of a heat exchanger core (not shown) disposed within the electronics cabinet 5, as indicated by airflow arrows 22 directly below the external pathway inlet plenum 15a. The electronics cabinet 5 further includes an external pathway, fluid driving mechanism 10a. Examples of fluid driving mechanisms include motorized impellers and axial fans. The external pathway, fluid driving mechanism 10a draws the fluid entering the external pathway inlet plenum 15a through the external pathways of the heat exchanger core (not shown) and exhausts the fluid outside of the electronics cabinet 5. An electronics cabinet roof 12 is disposed on top of the electronics cabinet 5, which itself includes a top cover 17 that contains “internal” air contained inside the electronics cabinet 5. The electronics cabinet roof 12 prevents dust, rain, and other contaminants from entering the electronics cabinet 5 while allowing air to exit via vent holes or other pathways (not shown) to the air outside of the electronics cabinet 5, as indicated by arrows shown along the edges of the electronics cabinet roof 12.
Electronics (not shown) within the electronics cabinet 5 generate heat which warms the air within the electronics cabinet 5. The warm air rises and collects at the top of the electronics cabinet 5, including in a volume between the top cover 17 of the electronics cabinet 5 and internal pathway inlets 45a, . . . , 45n of the heat exchanger core 20. An internal pathway, fluid driving mechanism 10b connected to the heat exchanger core 20 through an internal pathway, fluid driving mechanism outlet plenum 15c (“internal pathway outlet plenum”) draws the warm air into the internal pathway inlets 45a, . . . , 45n, as shown by way of airflow arrows 24. The warm air passes through the heat exchanger core 20 where it is cooled and exhausts as cool air to the inside of the electronics cabinet 5, as shown by way of airflow arrows 28. In this way, internal air 27 is circulated through the electronics cabinet 5 to cool the electronics therein.
As shown in
It should be understood that the first grate 25a and second grate 25b may be one, two, or more pieces of material (e.g., metal, aluminum, rubber).
Existing heat exchangers use a special core. These cores can only be manufactured in places having specialized manufacturing equipment, and assembly of the cores requires hand caulking or other labor intensive techniques. Another aspect of the present invention addresses these limitations of existing cores by providing a simple core design that may be manufactured by any sheet metal or assembly house not having specialized manufacturing equipment with a further benefit of reducing much of the labor required to assemble existing cores. This simple core design is a “snap together” or “self-assembling” design that does not require hand caulking and that eliminates the need for grates 25a, 25b (
As shown in
While this invention has been particularly shown and described with references to preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the scope of the invention encompassed by the appended claims.
For example, the air may be any other fluid, such as a liquid (e.g., water) or any other gas, in applications in which heat exchangers can be used with liquids or gases.
The internal and external pathway fluid driving mechanisms 10a, 10b may be positioned anywhere along the external and internal pathways 30, 35, respectively. For example, the internal pathway fluid driving mechanism 10b may be positioned at one end of the internal pathways 35 to exhaust air out of the internal pathways 35 or at the other end of the internal pathways 35 to force air into the internal pathways 35.
The heat exchanger core 20 may be configured to draw air into and exhaust air out of the right and left sides of the heat exchanger core 20.
The thermally conductive members 32 may include holes through which air heat exchange occurs. The thermally conductive members 32 may also have a curvilinear shape or any other shape or include fins or other conductive extensions.
In some embodiments, the bending of edge areas of the thermally conductive members is done at multiple places along the same region (e.g., top and bottom) to accommodate multiple inlets and outlets in the same region. For example, the embodiment of
Deformation of edge areas 80, 82 in the top and bottom regions 81, 83, respectively, may be performed in various ways. For example, in some embodiments, the thermally conductive members may be cut along a line dividing edge areas. Then, opposing and adjacent edge areas may be folded in opposite directions. Materials may be added to seal or fill the gaps caused by the discontinuity between the edge areas. For example, triangular-shaped materials may be added to fill in the gaps. Bending or otherwise deforming the edge areas 80, 82 may be done by hand, machine, casting, or other preform technique.
It should be understood that the heat exchanger assembly 1 described herein may be used with other forms of heat exchangers, such as refrigeration units or air conditioning units, to supplement its cooling capacity to maintain cooling of the electronics cabinet 5 or other cabinet with which it is tasked with cooling.
Claims
1. A heat exchanger comprising:
- a core configured to cool an enclosure;
- multiple thermally conductive members disposed inside the core that define internal pathways and external pathways, the internal pathways defining inlets adapted to receive fluid from inside the enclosure and outlets adapted to pass fluid to inside the enclosure, the external pathways defining inlets adapted to receive fluid from outside the enclosure and outlets adapted to pass fluid to outside the enclosure;
- an external pathway fluid driving mechanism coupled to the core in fluid flow relationship with the external pathways and causing fluid to flow in a first direction through the external pathways; and
- an internal pathway fluid driving mechanism coupled to the core in fluid flow relationship with the internal pathways and causing fluid to flow in a second direction through the internal pathways in a manner to facilitate heat exchange by the multiple thermally conductive members.
2. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 wherein the fluid is air.
3. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 wherein the multiple thermally conductive members have a continuous surface.
4. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 wherein at least one of the multiple thermally conductive members has a surface defining fluid flow pathways between the internal pathways and the external pathways.
5. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 wherein the core is disposed in the enclosure in an arrangement defining a volume from which the internal pathway inlets receive fluid from inside the enclosure.
6. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 wherein the core is coupled to the enclosure outside of the enclosure.
7. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 wherein the core is disposed in the enclosure in an arrangement defining a first volume between the core and a first side internal to the enclosure and a second volume between the core and a second side internal to the enclosure.
8. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 wherein at least one of the fluid driving mechanisms comprises multiple fluid driving mechanisms.
9. The heat exchanger according to claim 8 wherein the fluid driving mechanisms comprise multiple internal fluid driving mechanisms and multiple external fluid driving mechanisms offset from each other.
10. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 further comprising plenums extending the internal pathways and external pathways to respective fluids inside and outside the enclosure.
11. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 further comprising grates in operational relationship with at least one of the internal or external pathways of the core, the grates causing fluid to flow through the internal pathways or the external pathways.
12. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 wherein the multiple thermally conductive members are adapted to self-assemble in a manner defining the inlets, outlets, internal pathways, and external pathways.
13. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 wherein the positions of the fluid driving mechanisms relative to respective pathways cause fluid flow in at least one of counter, cross, or diagonal directions.
14. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 wherein the fluid driving mechanism is a motorized impeller.
15. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 wherein the fluid driving mechanism is an axial fan.
16. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 wherein the fluid driving mechanism is positioned at the inlets, outlets, or combination thereof.
17. The heat exchanger according to claim 1 wherein the heat exchanger is used in an electronics cabinet.
18. A method for cooling an enclosure, the method comprising:
- causing fluid to flow in a first direction through external pathways of a core configured to cool an enclosure having multiple thermally conductive members disposed inside the core to define internal pathways and the external pathways, the internal pathways defining inlets adapted to receive fluid from inside the enclosure and outlets adapted to pass fluid to inside of the enclosure, the external pathways defining inlets adapted to receive fluid from outside the enclosure and outlets adapted to pass fluid to outside of the enclosure; and
- causing fluid to flow in a second direction through the internal pathways of the core in a manner facilitating heat exchange by the multiple thermally conductive members.
19. The method according to claim 18 wherein the fluid is air.
20. The method according to claim 18 wherein causing fluids to flow includes causing the fluids to flow continuously from the inlets to the outlets.
21. The method according to claim 18 wherein causing fluids to flow includes causing fluid to flow between at least one of the internal pathways and at least one of the external pathways.
22. The method according to claim 18 wherein causing fluid to flow through the internal pathways of the core includes drawing the fluid from a first volume between the core and a first side of the cabinet and a second volume between the core and an opposing second side of the cabinet.
23. The method according to claim 18 wherein causing fluids to flow includes causing fluid in respective internal pathways and external pathways to flow in at least one of counter, cross, or diagonal directions.
24. The method according to claim 18 wherein the method is performed within an electronics cabinet.
Type: Application
Filed: May 2, 2005
Publication Date: Nov 2, 2006
Applicant: Tellabs Operations, Inc. (Naperville, IL)
Inventor: Lawrence Giacoma (Plano, TX)
Application Number: 11/120,141
International Classification: F28D 15/00 (20060101);