Study of flow and heat transfer characteristics of tandem cold plates for data center cooling

As data center chip power densities increase, liquid-cooling cold plates have gained widespread attention for their superior thermal management performance. This study systematically analyzes the thermal-hydraulic performance of tandem cold plates with different combination modes through numerical simulations and experimental validation. Results indicate that LCP2 (cold plate with narrow channel width) reduces thermal resistance ( R t ) by 29% compared to LCP1 (cold plate with wide channel width) but increases pressure drop ( ΔP ) by 141%. The LCP1+2 tandem mode combining a primary cold plate LCP1 and a secondary cold plate LCP2 achieves optimal thermal performance, which has a 3.49°C reduction in the maximum chip temperature ( T max ), 15% lower total thermal resistance ( R t, total ), and twofold improvement in thermal performance index ( TPI ) compared to LCP1+1 mode (two LCP1 tandem). In addition, as inlet temperature or load rate rises, increasing the flow rate can effectively reduce the temperature difference between two CPUs and improve system temperature uniformity. The deviation between the simulated data and the experimental data is within 2.32%, confirming the accuracy of the model. This work offers valuable insights for improving the cooling efficiency and thermal uniformity of liquid cooling systems, ensuring safe and reliable operation in high-performance data center environments.