Data from: Two-phase immersion cooler for medium-voltage silicon carbide MOSFETs
Data files
Sep 25, 2025 version files 109.56 MB
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ned3-008_ImmersionCooling.zip
109.56 MB
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README.md
4.52 KB
Abstract
Medium-voltage (MV) silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs play a pivotal role in various industrial applications, including electrical vehicles, DC fast charging stations, and renewable energy conversion systems, among others. Compared to their silicon counterparts, the MV SiC MOSFETs feature higher efficiency, faster switching speeds, lower heat generation, and higher power density. Despite their advantages, SiC MOSFETs also lead to higher cooling demands. To address this challenge, we have developed a two-phase immersion cooler, in which the base plate is immersed in the liquid pool, and vapor generated from coolant boiling on the base plate is condensed on the top surface of the immersion cooler under external air cooling. To further improve the cooling capacity, the base plates are textured with microchannels. Experimental tests have been performed to characterize the thermal performance of the two-phase immersion cooler with a state-of-the-art 6.5kV SiC device. The immersion cooler with microchannels exhibits decreasing thermal resistance with the power load and is shown to be superior to conventional air-cooled heat sinks when the power loads are beyond 70 W. Leveraging the feature of reduced thermal resistance with the power load, the fan power can be tuned based on the power load to increase the lifetime of the fans.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.k98sf7mk9
Description of the data and file structure
This dataset includes the temperature histories captured during two-phase immersion cooling of a medium-voltage silicon carbide MOSFET. The immersion cooler is pre-filled with 10 mL of deionized water (~ 54% of the volume of the chamber). During the thermal tests, the MOSFET is charged with a power supply (TDK-Lambda GEN300W), and the PWM fan is connected to a power supply (BK Precision 1671A) and an Arduino UNO R3 board for duty cycle control. A T-type bolt-on thermocouple (McMaster-Carr 3648K26) is mounted on a bolt connected to the base plate (Tbolt). Three T-type probe thermocouples (OMEGA Engineering TJ36-CPSS-032U-6) are used to measure the ambient temperature (Tamb) and the temperatures of the source of the MOSFET (Tsource) and PCB (TPCB), respectively. All thermocouples are connected to a National Instruments (NI) data acquisition system consisting of a cDAQ-9174 chassis and a NI 9210 DAQ card. An infrared camera (Teledyne FLIR A655c) is used to measure the temperature field on the base plate at a frame rate of 50 fps. Figure 3 shows a representative IR image captured during the tests. The maximum temperature from the IR camera is used to represent the base plate temperature (Tbp). To examine the effect of the PCB on IR measurement, a calibration test was performed to measure the base plate temperature with and without the PCB in between, which revealed unnoticeable differences in measured Tbp. A direct air-cooling test was also performed using a conventional air-cooled heat sink (Awxlumv 40 × 40 × 20mm) directly installed on the MOSFET with thermal paste (SYY 157).
Files and variables
This dataset (ned3-008_ImmersionCooling.zip) includes five folders. Among them, the following three folders include the raw data from three representative cases.
- Immersion_cooler_50W_HFE-7100_flat: A representative test using HFE 7100 as the working fluid under a heat load of 50 W with a 100% fan duty cycle
- Immersion_cooler_50W_water_flat: A representative test using deionized water as the working fluid under a heat load of 50 W with a 100% fan duty cycle
- Immersion_cooler_100W_water_flat: A representative test using deionized water as the working fluid under a heat load of 100 W with a 100% fan duty cycle
Each of these three folders includes four files, i.e.,
- A LabVIEW measurement file (.lvm) for temperatures of the PCB (ambient), MOSFET source, and the bolt measured using thermocouples
- A video (.mp4) for the temperature field evolution of the two-phase immersion cooling measuring using IR imaging
- A spreadsheet (.csv) for the maximum temperature on the base plate from the IR imaging (hotspot)
- A MATLAB code (.m) for plotting the temperature histories during the tests.
The following two folders include maximum base plate temperatures from IR imaging for parametric study tests:
- Base_plate_temperature_from_IR_water_flat: Data from immersion cooling tests with a flat base plate under varying heat loads (10 W - 110 W) and with varying fan duty cycles (0%, 50%, 100%).
- Base_plate_temperature_from_IR_water_microchannels: Data from immersion cooling tests with a microchannel base plate under varying heat loads (10 W - 110 W) and with varying fan duty cycles (0%, 50%, 100%).
Each of these two folders includes two types of files, i.e.,
- Spreadsheets (.csv) for the temporal evolution of the maximum temperature on the base plate. The naming convention for the spreadsheets follows "Max_T_#W_Fan_#" where the first # represents the power load (unit: W) and the second # represents the fan duty cycle (unit: %). The keyword "No_Fan" is used for a 0% fan duty cycle. Each spreadsheet has four columns, representing frame number (dimensionless), physical time (mm:ss.ss), relative time (unit: s), and temperature (unit: centigrade).
- A MATLAB code to read, process, and plot the temperature data in the spreadsheets. The codes "Immersion_cooling_temp_analysis_flat.m" and "Immersion_cooling_temp_analysis_MC.m" are for analyzing the temperature data for the flat base plate and microchanneled base plate, respectively.
Code/software
The .m file can be opened using MATLAB. The .lvm and .csv files can be processed using the MATLAB code provided in the dataset. The .mp4 files can be opened using a video player.