A Review of Vapor Chambers

ABSTRACT

Future developments in electronic industries will require efficient cooling systems to dissipate large amount of heat produced over a small area. In recent years, interest has grown in extending the use of vapor chambers to high heat flux electronics cooling because of their low thermal resistance values and uniform temperature distribution abilities. A detailed overview of vapor chambers is presented in this paper including their principle of operation, types of performance characteristics, and various applications. Recent developments in improving the thermal performance of vapor chambers are also presented in this article.

Acknowledgments

Murat Bulut wishes to thank the Scientific and Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) for TUBITAK-BIDEB 2214/A International Research Fellowship Program grant. The research was conducted in the Thermal Analysis, Microfluidics and Fuel Cell Laboratory in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Murat Bulut

Murat Bulut holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Selcuk University in Konya, Turkey and a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), Rochester, NY, USA. His masters’ thesis advisor was Prof. S.G. Kandlikar. He was a visiting scholar between December 2015 and October 2016 at RIT during Ph.D. studies, under the supervision of Prof. Kandlikar. He received his Ph.D. degree from Mechanical Engineering Department in Sakarya University, Turkey in 2016. He has published over 40 journal and conference papers. He joined TURKSAT A.S in 2006 as Satellite Thermal Engineer and worked for Thales Alenia Space between 2006–2007 and 2010–2013 in Cannes, France. Before joining TURKSAT, he worked for Carrier Corporation at Large Rooftop Products as an application and development engineer in Syracuse, New York and McMinnville, Tennessee, USA. His major interest of study is heat transfer, HVAC, and spacecraft thermal control.

Satish G. Kandlikar

Satish G. Kandlikar is at Rochester Institute of Technology since 1980 and is currently the Gleason Professor Mechanical Engineering. He received his Ph.D. degree from the IIT Bombay in 1975. He has worked extensively in the area of flow boiling and critical heat flux phenomena at microscale, single-phase flow in microchannels, electronic cooling, and water management in PEM fuel cells. He has published over 400 journal and conference papers. He is the receipt of the 2012 ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award. His recent work on pool and flow boiling has produced exceptionally high heat fluxes along with very high heat transfer coefficients.

Nedim Sozbir

Nedim Sozbir obtained his B.Sc. degree in mechanical engineering from Yıldız Technical University, Turkey. He completed M.Sc. degree at the Yıldız Technical University, Turkey. His Ph.D. degree was awarded at the Istanbul University, Turkey in 1995. He worked at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Miami as a visiting scholar with Prof. Sadık Kakac. He performed research in electronic cooling and thermal systems. He also worked at Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University as a research associate with Prof. S.C. Yao. He performed research in spray cooling. He worked as a thermal engineer, Thales Alenia Space in France. He has been working in the department of mechanical engineering at Sakarya University as a full time faculty member since 1995. He is also advisor of Turksat A.S. and Tubitak Space Research Center in Ankara, Turkey. His current research interests include electronic cooling, energy, thermal systems, spacecraft thermal control and defense systems. He is a member of AIAA and Turkish M.E.C. He has published over 130 papers in national and international journals and conferences.