JPH0441520B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Application of the Invention] The present invention provides a cooling device for efficiently cooling the inside of panels housing electronic or electrical equipment when the panels are arranged in a row. It is related to.

[Prior art]

In recent years, with the rapid development of IC and LSI technology, electronic components have tended to become smaller, and with improvements in mounting technology, the mounting density of electronic circuit units and the boards in which these electronic circuit units are housed has become smaller. The reality is that the situation is increasing. As packaging density increases, the method of handling the heat emitted by various electronic components becomes a major issue, along with improving reliability. Until now, forced air cooling has generally been used to cool electronic components inside panels. are now being adopted. In other words, by drawing air into the panel from outside the panel using a cooling fan or the like, and applying this air to the electronic components, various electronic components are directly cooled, and the resulting warm air is not released to the outside of the panel. It is something to do.

On the other hand, the installation environment for panels housing electronic circuit units is changing from air-conditioned rooms to electrical rooms, and from electrical rooms to the field, but forced air cooling methods cannot be used in poor installation environments. It has become something that does not exist. This is because dust in the air can adhere to electronic components, causing short circuits, and corrosive gases can corrode electronic components and wiring materials, leading to unexpected accidents. It is from. Apart from cases in which cooling is performed using specially prepared clean cooling air, such problems become more noticeable when cooling is performed by drawing in general air existing outside the panel. .

Therefore, for the above reasons, the reliability of the forced air cooling method has become problematic.
For this reason, a method of cooling the inside of the board by configuring the board as a closed type and providing a cooling unit above the board is gradually being adopted.

In Figure 1, a cooling unit 2 is installed on the top of a panel 1 that is configured in a closed type.
is, for example, specifically an air-air heat exchanger. FIG. 2 is a schematic, partly omitted cross-sectional view of the board configuration for accommodating an electronic circuit unit in which the cooling unit is an air-air heat exchanger. According to this, the electronic circuit unit 3, which is a heat source, is housed inside the panel 1, but a heat absorbing section 5, which forms part of the cooling unit, is located at the bottom of the top plate of the panel 1. While installed integrally, panel 1
A heat radiating section 4 constituting the remaining part of the cooling unit is attached to the upper part of the ceiling board. In this case, no air enters or exits between the heat absorbing part 5 and the heat radiating part 4, but they are thermally connected by a heat transfer member 10 such as copper or a heat pipe that has good thermal conductivity. There is. Thus, the heat from the electronic circuit unit 3 etc. is transferred to the heat absorbing section 5 by the fans 6 and 7.
If heat is transferred to the heat transfer member 10 on the side, and the heat transferred from the heat transfer member 10 on the heat absorption part 5 side to the heat transfer member 10 on the heat radiation part 4 side is radiated by the fans 8 and 9, the board 1 The electronic circuit unit 3 and the like housed inside are kept in good condition and cooled even in a poor installation environment.

By the way, when a plurality of panels housing electronic circuit units and the like are installed in a row, the electronic circuit units 3 and the like are cooled as shown in FIG. When a plurality of panels 1A to 1D are installed in a row, that is, in a row-by-line configuration, each of the panels 1A to 1D has a second configuration, except that no heat dissipation fan is provided corresponding to the heat dissipation section. Although it is almost the same as that shown in the figure, heat dissipation fans 11 and 12 are provided in common to the substitute panels 1A to 1D,
Guide member (top lid) 1 for securing the cooling air flow path
3 is commonly provided on the boards 1A to 1D. The cooling air taken in by the fan 11 sequentially passes through the heat radiation parts 4A to 4D in the panels 1A to 1D, thereby removing heat from the heat absorption parts 5A to 5D. However, when cooling is performed in this manner, the cooling efficiency of the panels 1A to 1D is generally different and unsatisfactory. This is because, although the closer to the fan 11 the better the disk is cooled, the closer to the fan 12 the higher the temperature of the cooling air becomes, so the disk is no longer cooled.

Generally speaking, a cooling method as shown in FIG. 2 will be adopted for an isolated board, but the situation is slightly different in the case of a row-by-board configuration. In the case of a row-by-side panel configuration, in order to facilitate maintenance and inspection and simplify the cooling mechanism, there is no need to install a heat dissipation fan on the top of the panel, and each panel does not have to be cooled independently, making the entire panel unified. This is because it has become desirable to be cooled down.

[Purpose of the invention]

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a system in which when a plurality of panels are installed in a row, the panels can be uniformly cooled without installing a heat dissipation fan on the top of the panels, and the cooling efficiency of each panel can be improved. The purpose is to provide cooling devices for heat generating equipment storage panels.

[Summary of the invention]

For this purpose, the present invention provides a cooling device for heat-generating equipment storage panels arranged in a row and sealed with each other, wherein an inlet and an outlet are provided at the upper part of each heat-generating equipment storage board. air-to-air heat exchangers each having a heat dissipation section located on the same horizontal plane as each other are installed, and between the cooling air source for the cooling air medium and each of the air-to-air heat exchangers, a The cooling air medium is shared and guided, and the air
By connecting ducts that flow independently into each heat radiating part of the air-air heat exchanger, the amount of cooling air medium passing through each heat radiating part of the air-air heat exchanger can be determined by adjusting the location of each heat generating equipment storage panel to the cooling air source. It is designed to gradually increase the distance from the position.

[Embodiments of the invention]

Embodiments of the cooling device according to the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 4 to 8.

First, the outline of the present invention will be explained with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5. Wind or cold air is transmitted from the cooling unit 14 as a cooling air source through the duct 15 to the heat dissipation section 4A.
It is designed to flow in sequentially branched into 4D to 4D. The cooling unit 14 is specifically composed of a fan, a blower, a cooler, etc., but if the wind or cold air from the cooling unit 14 is appropriately distributed and supplied to the heat radiating parts 4A to 4D via the duct 15 of a simple configuration, The plates 1A to 1D can be cooled in good condition. In this case, in the case shown in Fig. 4, the wind or cold air blows from the front side of the board to the back side of the board, and in the case shown in Fig. 5, the wind or cold air blows from the back side of the board to the front side of the board. However, the cooling method is basically the same. Therefore, as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, each heat radiating section 4 of the air-air heat exchanger
A to 4D are attached to the upper part of each of the panels 1A to 1D, respectively, and their inlets and outlets are located on the same horizontal plane. The duct 15 stands upward from the cooling unit 14, extends horizontally along the top of the panels 1A to 1D at its upper end, and branches and connects to the inlets of the respective heat radiating parts 4A to 4D at the extended portion. ing.

Here, referring to the cooling efficiency of the panels 1A to 1D, the cooling efficiency is determined by the air volume to the heat radiating parts 4A to 4D, so the air volume to each of the heat radiating parts 4A to 4D is adjusted as necessary. It has become a fixed thing. The air volume to each of the heat radiating parts 4A to 4D is determined by the inlet opening area or outlet opening area of the wind or cold air in the heat radiating parts 4A to 4D, so if you want to set these areas appropriately, it is necessary to The cooling efficiency required for each of 1A to 1D can be obtained. For example, if each of the panels 1A to 1D generates the same amount of heat and needs to be cooled to the same degree, the cross-sectional area of the opening in each of the heat dissipating parts 4A to 4D will not be the same, and the heat dissipation sections 4A to 4D will be placed on the cooling unit 14 side. The closer the opening is, the smaller the opening cross-sectional area is set.
This is because, since air is a compressible fluid, unless it is set in this way, the same amount of air cannot be obtained, and therefore the same level of cooling efficiency cannot be obtained.
The point is that the opening area of each panel should be set in order to obtain the air volume according to the required cooling efficiency.

FIGS. 6a, b, and c show a simplified plane (cross-section), front (partially sectional), and side (partially sectional) of the board in the installation mode shown in FIG. 4, respectively. In this example, the panels 1A to 1D have the same amount of heat and are cooled to the same extent.
According to this, the outlet 17A in the heat radiation parts 4A to 4D
Although the opening areas of the inlets 16A to 17D are approximately the same, those of the inlets 16A to 16D are different from each other for the reasons described above. In this example, inflow ports 16A to 16
Although the required air volume is obtained in each of the heat dissipating parts 4A to 4D by the opening area of D, FIG. 7 shows the case where the required air volume is obtained by the opening area of the outlet. This is shown in correspondence with that shown in . That is, in FIG. 7, the opening areas of the inlets 16A to 16D of the respective heat radiating parts 4A to 4D are approximately the same, while the opening area of the outlet 17A closest to the cooling unit 14 among the outlets 17A to 17D is By making the opening area of 17B to 17D the smallest and gradually increasing the opening area of 17B to 17D, each heat dissipation part 4A is
The amount of air passing through 4D gradually increases as it moves away from the cooling unit 14. Therefore, as the positions of the panels 1A to 1D become farther away from the position of the cooling unit 14, the heat radiation parts 4A to 4D become more distant from each other.
The amount of wind passing through is gradually increased.

However, it should be noted that when gradually increasing the amount of air passing through, it is desirable that the ratio of opening areas between the heat radiating parts be determined by actually conducting a temperature rise test. Therefore, when carrying out the present invention, it is desirable to set the opening area of the inlet or outlet to be variable.

FIGS. 8a, b, and c are perspective views of the main parts of a cooling device whose outlet opening area is variable by various adjusting means. Describing the various adjusting means, first, the adjusting means shown in Fig. 8a has two plate regulating pieces 1 on the back side of the heat dissipation section.
9, and the adjusting plate 18 is attached so as to be vertically movable in order to change the opening area of the outlet 17 while being regulated by these plate regulating pieces 19. For example, screw holes 21 are bored at a predetermined pitch in the adjustment plate 18, but if any of the screw holes 2
1 is appropriately selected and the screw 20 is engaged with this through the plate regulating piece 19, the desired opening area of the outlet 17 can be obtained. Next, in the adjusting means shown in FIG. 8b, a fixed adjusting plate (not shown) in which elongated holes are formed in advance at a predetermined pitch is fixed to the back surface of the heat radiating part, and a movable adjusting plate 22 having the same structure is fixed to the adjusting means shown in FIG. are mounted so as to be movable in the left and right direction and overlapped with each other. Although the movable adjustment plate 22 is also formed with long holes 23 at a predetermined pitch, the desired outlet opening area can be obtained by appropriately adjusting the left-right displacement of the movable adjustment plate 22 with respect to the fixed adjustment plate. It is something to do. In this embodiment, since the screw 24 is engaged with the fixed adjustment plate through the long hole 25 bored in the corner part of the movable adjustment plate 22, the movable adjustment can be made with the screw 24 loosened. By tightening the screw 25 after adjusting the position of the plate 22, a desired outlet opening area can be secured. Finally, the adjustment means shown in FIG. 8c is explained. In this embodiment, the opening area of the outlet 17 is adjusted by the rotational position of the adjustment plate 27 which is rotatable. Adjustment plate 2 by hinge 26
Reference numeral 7 is rotatable and can be set at an appropriate rotational position by means of auxiliary means. Although other methods of adjusting the outlet opening area can be considered, it goes without saying that the inlet opening area may be adjusted instead of adjusting the outlet opening area.

In the above example, the entire duct is integrated, but it is also possible to attach the duct portion to each panel in advance. This is to connect adjacent duct parts when a plurality of panels are installed in a row. Further, in the above example, the wind or cold air is supplied from the cooling unit to the heat radiating section of the board, but the direction of the wind is not limited to this, and it is also possible to reverse the direction.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, in the present invention, an air-air heat exchanger is attached to the upper part of each closed type panel installed in a row, and the cooling air medium from the cooling air source passes through the duct to the respective air. - When passing through the heat radiating parts of the air heat exchanger, by gradually increasing the amount of passage to each heat radiating part as the position of the panel becomes farther from the cooling air source, each panel is separated from the cooling air source. Even if the distances between the two are different, the cooling is performed at approximately the same level regardless of this. Therefore, according to the present invention, each panel is cooled to the same degree, resulting in good cooling, so it is possible to obtain a unified cooling effect for the panels, and moreover, the heat dissipation section of each air-air heat exchanger is Since there is no need to provide a heat dissipation fan, maintenance and inspection can be made easier and the cooling mechanism can be simplified.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure 1 shows a method for cooling a closed panel with a cooling unit installed on the top of the panel, and Figure 2 shows the configuration of a panel in which the cooling unit is an air-air heat exchanger. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a conventional device for cooling a plurality of panels installed in a row, and FIGS. 4 and 5 are diagrams showing a cooling device according to the present invention, respectively, as a partially omitted cross-sectional view. FIGS. 6a, b, and c are diagrams respectively showing a simplified plane, front, and side view of the panel in the installation mode according to FIG. 4, and FIG. 7 is a schematic perspective view showing an example of FIGS. 8a, 8b, and 8c are perspective views showing essential parts of various adjusting means, respectively. 1A to 1D... (closed type) board, 4A to 4D...
...heat dissipation section, 14... cooling unit as a cooling air source, 15... duct, 16A to 16D... inlet, 17A to 17D... outlet.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A cooling device for heat-generating equipment storage panels, each of which is arranged in a row and hermetically sealed,
An air-to-air heat exchanger having a heat dissipation part with an inlet and an outlet located on the same horizontal plane is installed on the upper part of each heat generating equipment storage panel, and a cooling air source for the cooling air medium and a cooling air source for the cooling air medium and the respective air - A duct is connected between the air heat exchanger and the cooling air medium from the cooling air source to guide it in common and to flow it independently into each heat radiating part of the air-air heat exchanger, so that the air-air heat A cooling device for a heat generating equipment storage board, characterized in that the amount of cooling air medium passing through each heat radiating part of an exchanger is gradually increased as the position of each heat generating equipment storage board becomes farther from the position of a cooling air source. 2. Claim 1, characterized in that either one of the inlet and outlet of each heat radiating part in each of the air-air heat exchangers is provided with an adjusting means that can adjust the opening area thereof. A cooling device for a heat generating equipment storage panel as described in 2.