THe Sandia Cooler - Breakthrough in Air Cooling design

[Gideon]

the factory called, NTMBK and VirtualLarry models are being recalled to get their humor upgraded.

I though we were finally through with DNF jokes having a good run between 1998 - 2011.

Does it mean, we'll also have to endure "Can it run Crysis ?" jokes till 2017 - 2019 ?

 

[Phynaz]

it's still vaporware. i wonder what will be out first: the commercial application of this, or Duke Nuke'm Forever...

It's research. Not all research shows up at retail.

 

[NTMBK]

the factory called, NTMBK and VirtualLarry models are being recalled to get their humor upgraded.

Hey, don't blame me for your joke sucking

 

[pmv]

I though we were finally through with DNF jokes having a good run between 1998 - 2011.

Does it mean, we'll also have to endure "Can it run Crysis ?" jokes till 2017 - 2019 ?

Shouldn't all DNF jokes now be reworked as Half Life Episode 3 jokes?

 

[itsmydamnation]

but steam is awesome so all valve becomes joke immune :ninja:

 

[UaVaj]

Well all understand that heat can xfer from our current heatsink fins to the air blown by the fan.

Now, try to think how that can go either direction, it's reversible.

So you have one heated metal xfer heat to the airstream. You get hot air. But that hot airstream passes over another set of cool fins. The heat is xfered from the hot air to the cool fins.

So heat passes from one thing to another. It's not a one-way street. Heat goes downhill from hotter things to cooler things.

That's what the air bearing does, it lets heat go from one metal piece to air to another metal piece. That's how the heat crosses the air bearing.

that make sense on how heat moves from stationary part (heat absorb part) to rotation part (heat dissipate part).

at the end of the day. heat transfer heat dissipation is a matter of: total surface area x amount of air flow.

-----

looks like CM 212 is still king for ~$30.

 

[MustangSVT]

vaporware as expected and as I said years ago.

 

[kmurkey]

Damn, looked like a fine idea.

 

[dealcorn]

Never underestimate the ability of government funding to create documents authored by "experts" that sound quasi reasonable. Absent documents, the funding dries up. Typically, buddies are most qualified to receive funding. US leadership in green funding follows this pattern. I have more faith in private investment where some expectation of customer consent (folks willing pay for it) is required.

 

[Bill Brasky]

Damn, looked like a fine idea.

Yeah, reinventing the wheel at a higher cost doesn't do much for development.

 

[BUnit1701]

LMAO 6 months later and its 'vaporware'?!?! You really dislike this idea Mustang, did someone steal it from you or what?

EDIT: OK, Closer to 1.5 years, but still way off from the estimated 5-7 years for development, fail to see the 'vaporware' factor.

 

[Idontcare]

LMAO 6 months later and its 'vaporware'?!?! You really dislike this idea Mustang, did someone steal it from you or what?

EDIT: OK, Closer to 1.5 years, but still way off from the estimated 5-7 years for development, fail to see the 'vaporware' factor.

I see this as nothing exceptional in terms of timeline. It was demonstrated as a proof-of-concept prototype, and successfully at that.

Taking that and making a polished retail sellable product with the necessary product reliability as well as at a pricepoint that can drive volume adoption is going to take product development time. Years.

Nothing unexpected here, standard project management triangle stuff.

Do you want it to cost $300 but have it in 2 yrs or do you want it to cost $100 and be available in 4 or 5 yrs?

 

[moonbogg]

I'd be afraid of that thing spawning a black hole in my living room, but i'd try one out anyway for about $150 max.

 

[aigomorla]

This isnt a breakthrough..
This isnt even in the WOW territory.
This top fan is trying to remove the dead spots.

Its basically removing the requirement of a shroud.

You remove the dead spot, you got total saturation of surface area on the sink to transfer heat.

however his model is flawed due to the lack of surface area, unless that baseplate is composed of unidirection carbon nanotubes.
His model and study has been SMASHED and hammered by Watercooling Testers for many years now using WATER as the medium, and not air.
Also a VERY BIG company went into this type of venture.. and realized its FAIL... (OCZ being that company)

Water gives u a better reaction so you can model your sink due to water's not being able to compress.
You can also record the turbulence the water makes inside vs an air sink where it would compress.
(where OCZ kinda gave up.. tony said transferring from "point A to B was very difficult"
Yes i miss OCZ Tony and his CRAZY experiments he would run in OCZ's RnD.)

So again, he failed at noting the air compression its undergoing as the air compresses in that tight heat pocket.
You cant ignore hydrodynamic pressure with air when it has a compression coefficient.

The reason why sinks have fins is in easy physics more surface area.
Having more surface area allows greater transfer of heat.

Thats where his model fails.... he's not improving anything, he's just making it more efficient with his top fan being more of a screw type then a traditional pusher.
its not just thin.. but also surface area... this is why we in watercooling use ultra thin bases, with fins.
You can make it sound all wowish all you want, but when u look at raw physics, cant escape physics.

My 3 rules in thermo.
1. You must play.
2. You cant cheat.
3. You can never quit.


If you guys wanna ask me.. i think future coolers will be like those fiber optic lamps.

where each hair fiber is a unidirectional carbon nano tube which pulls heat and radiates it though those hair like follicles.
This solution would also be passive... and should be able to cool massive amount of heat due to the intense surface area those hair give.

 

[bradly1101]

So my PC will have a flywheel? That'll give it much more stability when I race it against all the other PC's.

 

[aigomorla]

So my PC will have a flywheel? That'll give it much more stability when I race it against all the other PC's.

LOL it looks like a LSD... so i guess ur pc will be able to DRIFT as well.

 

[bradly1101]

LOL it looks like a LSD... so i guess ur pc will be able to DRIFT as well.

Hell yeah! I also want it to sound like one of those buzz-bomb mufflers. I need to hear the performance!

 

[CTho9305]

This isnt a breakthrough..
This isnt even in the WOW territory.
<snip>

Sci-fi carbon nanotubes are great when they're manufacturable, but they aren't yet. As for the "dead spots" stuff, I think you've misunderstood what the Sandia cooler is trying to solve. It's not a large-scale "where is the fan blowing" issue... using a quality centrifugal blower that provides even airflow across the whole heatsink still doesn't address the problem the Sandia cooler addresses. These guys are dealing with a very thin film of air that surrounds heatsink fins regardless of how you got the air flowing.

 

[Idontcare]

Sci-fi carbon nanotubes are great when they're manufacturable, but they aren't yet.

Worse still is that the sci-fi carbon nanotubes are going to be the 21st century's "asbestos" nightmare.

We'll spend 10yrs as consumers being convinced that nanotubes are the future, we'll pay a premium for them to be infused into everything...and then we'll spend the subsequent 90yrs paying through the nose to have them removed and abated as a hazmat issue.

History gets to repeat itself. Yeah history :\

 

[aigomorla]

Worse still is that the sci-fi carbon nanotubes are going to be the 21st century's "asbestos" nightmare.

We'll spend 10yrs as consumers being convinced that nanotubes are the future, we'll pay a premium for them to be infused into everything...and then we'll spend the subsequent 90yrs paying through the nose to have them removed and abated as a hazmat issue.

History gets to repeat itself. Yeah history :\

ROFL... IDC are u talking about fiberglass?

using a quality centrifugal blower that provides even airflow across the whole heatsink still doesn't address the problem the Sandia cooler addresses. These guys are dealing with a very thin film of air that surrounds heatsink fins regardless of how you got the air flowing.

i still dont get it then.

the thermo isnt adding up.
That thin layer of air flowing would still require surface area to rise from.
A Flat thin metal sink isnt going to give anywhere near the amount of surface area as per say a piece of metal sand blasted metal would.
And when you have air moving along with a fan, compression of air is always present.

So i dont understand how u can ignore hydrodynamics of air.

 

[Idontcare]

ROFL... IDC are u talking about fiberglass?

Asbestos is a stones throw from CNT (carbon nanotubes) in terms of deleterious health impact.

http://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au...ssment-and-classification-of-carbon-nanotubes

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110118092134.htm

 

[KingFatty]

That thin layer of air flowing would still require surface area to rise from.
A Flat thin metal sink isnt going to give anywhere near the amount of surface area as per say a piece of metal sand blasted metal would.
And when you have air moving along with a fan, compression of air is always present.

So i dont understand how u can ignore hydrodynamics of air.

Well, if you have the air moving, can you see how the surface area is not the whole picture?

If you move the air fast enough, you can transfer a *BUNCH* of heat from even a very small surface area.

So instead of focusing on just surface area, also think in terms of how amazing this product is for moving air across a surface area. It gets the same job done whole using a much smaller space. Or, if you use the same amount of space, it does a much bigger/better job, compared to traditional designs that take up extra space to have a separate heatsink and fan.

 

[aigomorla]

Well, if you have the air moving, can you see how the surface area is not the whole picture?

If you move the air fast enough, you can transfer a *BUNCH* of heat from even a very small surface area.

So instead of focusing on just surface area, also think in terms of how amazing this product is for moving air across a surface area. It gets the same job done whole using a much smaller space. Or, if you use the same amount of space, it does a much bigger/better job, compared to traditional designs that take up extra space to have a separate heatsink and fan.

and i have said thats because the spiral fan effect is getting rid of the center dead zone which non shrouded fans usually have.

I dont get whats so revolutionary about it.
Or how air can be negligible as described in the slide when the entire project is based on moving hot air.
Also you guys do realize theres a lot of difference between hot air and cold air...

 

[Subyman]

Vaporware? Its a research report, not a business plan looking for funding. I guess solar sails are vaporware as well.

 

[CTho9305]

and i have said thats because the spiral fan effect is getting rid of the center dead zone which non shrouded fans usually have.

I dont get whats so revolutionary about it.
Or how air can be negligible as described in the slide when the entire project is based on moving hot air.
Also you guys do realize theres a lot of difference between hot air and cold air...

So, there are two main aspects of the Sandia cooler to consider: the air gap, and the significance of rotating fins.

1) The smooth, stationary surface of the bottom plate, and the smooth, rotating base of the spinning part. I think you're not convinced that the heat transfer between them can be good? In that case, consider standing between two trains moving in opposite direction - even though trains are relatively smooth (long car, brief gap, long car, brief gap), it's going to be pretty unpleasant. Now scale the distance down to 10 microns, and even with smooth surfaces I think intuitively it makes sense that the air is going to be moving a very violently. At one spot it wants to move 0mph, and a few microns away it wants to move ~15mph (for perspective there's a speed difference of ~6 million microns per second across a distance of 10 microns; the same ratio for a 1 foot gap gives a speed difference of ~400,000mph). The air only has to travel very short distance between the two parts, and each molecule will be bouncing across that distance incredibly fast, which means it will carry heat very effectively. Sound good?

2) The rotating "fan". In an ordinary heatsink with an ideal air source blowing from one side, you'll see something like this (this is a top view of a single fin; the fin is the thick black line at the bottom):

Before the air hits the fins, it's moving at the same speed everywhere. However, as it flows past the fin, the air very close to the fin gets slowed down significantly (the gray area), and the molecules that touch the fin really want to stop completely. This is true even for a very smooth surface - there is always friction between the air and the fin (this same friction caused the violent air movement in part 1 of the argument). In the Sandia cooler, the fin spins so that centrifugal force helps push those slowed-down molecules away. They aren't eliminated - there is still a boundary layer that sticks to the fins, but it's thinner, and doesn't block heat transfer as much. As an analogy, consider somebody hanging on to a car... some percent of people can hang on in a 55mph wind blast, but fewer can hang on when the driver is also swerving. Or maybe a better example would be weather reporters clinging to a merry-go-round in a hurricane .

Hopefully both parts were independently satisfying, and the whole story makes sense...but if not I'd, be interested in understanding what exactly still bugs you about it.