Experimental study on jet-enhanced immersion liquid cooling for energy-efficient data centers

Optimizing the thermal management efficiency in data centers is a critical technological pathway for achieving carbon neutrality goals. To address the multi-scale heat dissipation and high-flux thermal coupling challenges, this study innovatively proposes a novel immersion liquid cooling (ILC) technology based on localized jet impingement for targeted cooling enhancement. Through the establishment of a server-grade experimental platform, this study conducts a comparative investigation of the performance between traditional and novel ILC systems. Furthermore, systematic analyses are performed to evaluate the operational parameter effects on jet-enhanced systems along with jet structure optimization. The results demonstrate that the novel ILC system achieves superior performance compared to traditional ILC, achieving a 92.5% improvement in local Nusselt number, a 20 °C reduction in maximum temperature, and a 46.5% decrease in coolant temperature differential index while maintaining low power usage effectiveness (PUE≤1.09). The influence of the main-to-jet flow ratio, cooling water temperature, and chip power on jet-enhanced system performance fundamentally represents a trade-off mechanism between flow resistance reduction and heat convection enhancement. Moreover, jet structure optimization identifies 90° vertical jets with a 3 mm orifice diameter and a 17 mm distance as the optimal configuration, yielding a 64.3% enhancement in performance evaluation criterion (PEC = 2.46).