An Assessment of Immersion Cooling for Power Electronics: An Oil Volume Case Study

Power electronics demand appropriate heat dissipation to secure life span, reliability, and power density. Among several cooling methods, oil immersion is an efficient and cost effective one. Natural convection is the most reliable considering the lack of pumps and fans compared to other practical ways of immersion cooling. This article brings a case study of a power electronics device submerged in an oil tank, the same one used for power transformers. Using computational fluid dynamics simulations and an experimental setup, the natural convection process is demonstrated as well as the better heat flow dissipation of oil immersion cooling.