Liquid cooling has a much higher thermal conductivity than air cooling, and thus a much higher heat transfer coefficient. Therefore in higher power applications liquid cooling is more effective than air cooling.

In recent times liquid cooling has become a popular designer?s choice in many of the industrial applications. Columbia-Staver have extensive knowledge in the design and manufacture of various forms of Liquid cold plates.

Cold plates can be a simple carrier with an embedded tube, highly complex mufti piece assemblies with enhanced surfaces within the flow path or they can be a single piece construction known as a Gun drilled cold plate.

Gun-Drilled Cold Plates

Gun-drilled cold plates are manufactured by drilling a series of deep holes (gun drilling) into an aluminium plate to form the liquid flow path.

These deep holes are interlinked by drilling perpendicular to the first series of holes. The ends of the holes are then plugged in order to create the desired flow path.

This results in a dual dual-sided cold plate that offers the same thermal characteristics to both sides. Component mounting holes can be drilled and tapped from both sides (avoiding the flow path of course)

The cold plate is manufactured from a single piece of aluminium that has not been through any thermal cycling. A significant benefit of gun-drilled cold plates is that they can maintain tighter tolerances than tubed cold plates, specifically for flatness requirements.

 

Alternative construction

For high volume applications and applications that are longer than can be achieved by gun drilling, the multiple flow path holes along the longest axis can be extruded eliminating the need to gun drill in this axis. Perpendicular linking holes can be gun drilled or a header can be mechanically fitted to each end or FSW (friction Stir welded in place).