New Spinning Heat Sink Design Could Trim Energy Use and Unleash Processing Power
The Air Bearing Heat Exchanger Jeff Koplow, Sandia National Labs via New Scientist Heat exchanger technology--the cooling machinery that ferries internal heat away from your PC, your computer, your air conditioner, and other appliances--hasn't changed too terribly much for decades. That's led to some limiting problems: For instance, more powerful computer chips can't be run at their full potential because they might overheat. But a new kind of heat sink developed at Sandia National Labs could change all that--and potentially shave seven percent off US electricity consumption. Conventional heat exchangers have a few primary components: a solid disk or plate that absorbs heat from the source (like a computer's processor), a bank of metal fins that help ferry the heat away from that disk (the heat sink), and a fan that stirs up the air around the fins to facilitate the outward movement of heat. This design is pretty standard, and hasn't...