Superior cooling performance of low footprint, hybrid magneto-fluidic heat transfer devices

Waste heat management by a passive magneto-fluidic device can improve the reliability, efficiency, and life span of a plethora of systems. A magneto-fluidic device is governed by the thermomagnetic convection of a ferrofluid. In this work, we investigated the effect of thermal conductivity of the flow channel material and device geometry on the cooling performance. We developed several racetrack shape devices with low footprint and high thermal conductivity. We developed various hybrid devices and evaluated the heat load cooling performance as functions of effect of copper to silicone tube content, and the magnet position. We found that the all-copper device cooled the heat load even when the magnet was far away from the heat load. A hybrid copper-silicone device exhibited the highest cooling of 123 °C for a heat flux value and initial heat load temperature of 3.47 kW/m² and 197 °C, respectively. Interestingly, better cooling was obtained for a hybrid device with a higher silicone content. An all-copper racetrack magnetic cooling device is suitable to cool magnetic field sensitive devices, while the hybrid racetrack device is appropriate for the cooling of magnetic field insensitive devices.