Characterization of cooling systems based on heat pipe principle to control operation temperature of high-tech electronic components

The use of cooling systems based on heat pipe principle to control operation temperature of electronic components is very efficient. They have an excellent miniaturizing capacity and this fact creates adaptability for more practical situations. Starting from the observation that these cooling systems are not precisely characterized from the thermal efficiency point of view, the present paper proposes a methodology of data acquisition for their thermal characterization. An experimental set-up and a data processing algorithm are shown to describe the cooling of a heat generating electronic device using heat pipes. A Thermalright SI-97 PC cooling system is employed as a case-study to determine the heat transfer characteristics of a fins cooler.