What Is Liquid Cooling? – Ask the Engineer [VIDEO]
Ask the Engineer
Calista Athans and Park Place Technologies CTO, Chris Carreiro, discuss the question – “What Is Liquid Cooling?” in this month’s Ask the Engineer.
You can learn more about Liquid Cooling Services here.
What Is Liquid Cooling?
Calista: Hey there, I’m Calista Athans, and welcome to another edition of Ask The Engineer. Today we’re joined by Chris Carreiro, Chief Technology Officer at Park Place Technologies. Thanks for being here today Chris.
Chris: Hey Calista, thanks for having me.
Calista: Of course! So Chris, something we’re getting a lot of questions about recently is liquid cooling. What exactly is liquid cooling?
Chris: Liquid cooling comes in a few different forms. They are all involved in cooling servers with a fluid instead of traditional fans, air, and air conditioners.
Types of Liquid Cooling
Chris:In both types of liquid cooling, you’re taking water and moving it over the components of the server to cool off the system.
Direct-to-Chip Liquid Cooling
Chris: You have one form called Direct-to-Chip which move water across a heat sink, removing it from the CPU and different components within the system.
Immersion Liquid Cooling
Chris: Then, you have immersion cooling which also comes in two different forms. You actually immerse a server in a tank of oil.
Calista: Very interesting – just to clarify, with immersion cooling, the servers are submerged directly into the fluid?
Chris: Yes, it’s actually a dielectric fluid, so it’s not water or anything that’s conductive. So, you have a non-conductive fluid and the server is 100% submerged in a bath of this liquid. The immersion itself is about 1000x more cooling capacity than traditional air data centers.
Calista: That’s fantastic. Well, you’ve definitely given us a lot to think about here. Thanks again for joining us today, Chris. If you have a question for one of our experts, simply add it to the comments section of this post – and we’ll see you next time on Ask The Engineer!