Abstract
A decentralized liquid cooling architecture for high-density data center racks integrates a micro-cooling distribution unit (mCDU) directly onto each server blade or chassis wall. The mCDU, an additively manufactured monolithic block of titanium or aluminum, replaces centralized rack-level heat exchangers and their associated plumbing. Its internal structure uses a triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) lattice, such as a Schwarz-P or Schwarz-D geometry, to create two intertwined, co-continuous fluid paths. One path circulates hot coolant from the server components while the other circulates cold facility water. This TPMS geometry has a large surface-area-to-volume ratio for thermal exchange and results in low hydraulic resistance. By localizing the heat exchange function at the blade level, the design eliminates rack-scale supply and return manifolds, which reduces system pressure drop, lowers pump power requirements, and removes multiple points of failure associated with external plumbing. The reclamation of space previously occupied by centralized cooling hardware increases compute density per rack.
Keywords: triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS), micro-cooling distribution unit (mCDU), 3D-printed heat exchanger, monolithic construction, lattice fluidics, chassis-level integration, high-density data center, power usage effectiveness (PUE)
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Recommended Citation
N/A and N/A, "Blade-Integrated Triply Periodic Minimal Surface Micro-Cooling Distribution Unit for High-Density Data Centers", Technical Disclosure Commons, ()
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/10371