High-Flux Micro-Fin Cold Plate

A Siemens NX liquid cooling design built around a C101 copper base, raised hotspot pedestal, dense micro-fin field, and clear acrylic manifold cover for high power-density electronics.

Direct-to-Chip Cooling Architecture Designed for high heat-flux electronic packages such as AI accelerators, GPU cold plates, and compact high-performance computing hardware.
Layered Thermal Hardware Combines a copper heat spreader, raised pedestal, micro-fin exchange region, and transparent PMMA manifold cover within one compact assembly-ready cooling design.
Cross-Industry Relevance Applicable to AI data center cooling, EV power electronics, and other localized liquid-cooling problems where compact geometry and high heat transfer are critical.
Base Material C101 Copper
Top Cover Clear Acrylic / PMMA
CAD Platform Siemens NX
Ray Traced Render Siemens NX ray traced render of micro-fin cold plate with clear acrylic manifold cover
Layered Architecture NX ray-traced render highlighting the copper base, raised pedestal, micro-fin field, and clear acrylic manifold cover.
Engineering Visualization Rendered directly from the Siemens NX assembly environment using the ray-tracing engine to communicate packaging, materials, and internal cooling architecture.
Closeup Siemens NX render of high-flux micro-fin cold plate
Ray Traced Study 01

Micro-Fin Region Closeup

Focused view of the finned heat transfer region and transparent manifold interface over the primary exchange zone.

Detailed Siemens NX render of micro-fin cold plate internal geometry
Ray Traced Study 02

Internal Geometry Detail

Magnified study of fin spacing, channel density, and the layered relationship between the copper base and coolant housing.

Design Development Environment
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Siemens NX design workflow

The cold plate architecture was developed directly in Siemens NX through pedestal formation, micro-fin array patterning, manifold cavity packaging, and fluid port placement.

Pedestal + Fin Core: micro-fin array centered on raised hotspot pedestal.
Manifold Packaging: transparent top housing used to study coolant routing.
Engineering Intent: direct-to-chip liquid cooling for high heat-flux electronics.
Engineering Design Rationale
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Material selection and heat-transfer geometry
Thermal Spreading Strategy — C101 Copper Oxygen-free copper (~391 W/m·K) spreads localized chip heat laterally into the micro-fin region, reducing hotspot gradients.
Transparent Manifold — Flow Visualization & Thermal Isolation The manifold is modeled in PMMA (acrylic) to allow visual inspection of coolant distribution during prototype testing. Transparent manifolds help identify stagnant flow zones or air entrapment in dense micro-fin arrays. Acrylic’s low thermal conductivity (~0.2 W/m·K) also encourages heat rejection into the coolant loop rather than the surrounding enclosure.
Boundary Layer Disruption — Micro-Fin Array Dense micro-fins disrupt the thermal boundary layer and improve convective heat transfer through enhanced fluid mixing.
Mechanical Integrity — G1 Fillets Smooth G1 fillets remove stress concentrations and improve durability under bolt preload and internal fluid pressure.

Performance Validation

Simulation In Progress

Simcenter 3D Thermal Study

Solving for junction temperature (Tjunction) and heat flux distribution across the copper base and micro-fin region.

Coolant Flow Analysis (CFD)

Evaluating pressure drop (ΔP) and velocity distribution through the micro-fin array to estimate convective heat transfer performance.