Liquid cooling

Liquid cooling has been used for quite some time in industrial cycles and machinery. It has in fact, as opposed to air cooling, a very high efficiency in transferring heat from the source to the place where he will be disposed of. Liquid cooling systems use water or a similar fluid to dissipate heat through a heat exchanger, using a pump to move the fluid within the circuit.

The main component is the liquid cooler (waterblock), which is shaped to fit the component to dissipate. The waterblock can be connected in series to more cooling components, each provided with an inlet and an outlet for the liquid, and thus wee are able to cool the components with a single circuit consisting of pump, liquid coolers and heat exchangers. The material used in the realization of the heat exchanger always depends on the application in which it will be used.

To be able to circulate the liquid the cooling system requires the use of a pump, which must be suitably dimensioned according to the thermodynamical characteristics of the circuit and the heat to be dissipated from the components. The heat absorbed by the fluid is dissipated through the radiators or cooling systems Chiller: these components also need to be accordingly dimensioned to be able to work at their best within the cooling circuit.

The radiator consists of a finned surface inside which flows the heated fluid coming from the liquid cooler (waterblock). Thanks to ventilation, the heat is then released to the surrounding environment. The fluid then goes back inside the liquid cooler (waterblock) where the cycle restarts. The Chiller type cooling system, unlike the radiator, absorbs the heat from the circuit and transfers it through a refrigeration system to a condenser. In this way, the temperature of the liquid may even go below ambient temperature.

Advantages: High thermal conductivity of water, possibility to remote radiators, low noise inside the machine or environment. Disadvantages: Maintenance, Start-up costs