Development of a self-cooling system utilizing waste heat from electronic equipment

There is potential for the waste heat from electrical and electronic equipment to power cooling systems for the equipment itself, resulting in energy savings. We investigated the feasibility of a self-cooling mechanism, in which refrigerant in a sealed container is heated by waste heat, a turbine is rotated by the vapor generated, and the rotational force is extracted using a magnetic coupling, which in turn is used to rotate a cooling fan. In this study, a system was prototyped and performance tests carried out to characterize its performance. As a result of repeated improvement of the prototype apparatus, circulation of the refrigerant in the apparatus was confirmed. By increasing the pressure differential between the heat chamber and the refrigerant receiver using a nozzle with optimum bore size, a rotor with an inner ring inside the chamber providing a magnetic coupling to an outer magnetic ring outside the chamber was successfully rotated. The above verified the validity of the system's principle