Air cooling is cost effective and easy to use, but it’s not ideal for every climate. It works best in dry areas where you can leave a window or door open to allow fresh, cool air to circulate. It is also limited in heat dispersal because of air’s low mass, so it’s better suited to components with a larger surface area or greater overall mass.
As processors become denser, they require more cooling and are pushing traditional air and liquid cooling to their limits. Innovative cooling technologies are helping enterprises get more power from their devices and overcoming the global semiconductor chip shortage with cooler, more efficient solutions.
The process of air cooling involves a continuous cycle of warm air being removed from your home and cool air returning to it. This is achieved via a special working fluid called refrigerant that is contained inside a series of coils. The coils guide the refrigerant from your home to the outside unit, where it is exposed to a set of metal fins that act much like the radiator on a car. These fins help dissipate the heat from the working fluid, which in turn lowers its temperature and pressure. The working fluid then passes through a small hole, called an evaporator, in the outer unit and evaporates into cold air.
Many produce handlers and shippers use forced air cooling to keep their commodity temperatures stable. One common arrangement, pictured in Figure 1, uses portable fans mounted on pallets to form a shell around each row of produce. This produces a “cooling wall” effect, with cold air pulled through the rows and out of the fan. air cooling