Liquid cooling solutions for Automotive HPC: Thermal path characterisation

Autonomous driving calls for on-board HPC modules requiring enhanced and reliable (liquid) cooling solutions under harsh environmental conditions. This paper proposes different approaches to increase the performance of liquid cooled heat sink designs. We compare different internal structures and novel designs which are only manufacturable by 3D printing. Staggered pin-fin and manifold designs are benchmarked against micro-channel based cold plates w.r.t. pressure drop and convective thermal resistance.