7 ms·

The Sandia Cooler (2016)

82 points by RichardHeart 5y ago

h2odragon 5y ago
The rotating mass of the heat sink would need an enclosure for safety reasons, negating most of the airflow advantages. "Transfer heat through an axle" sounds like one of those "draw the rest of the owl" steps too; no idea how that's supposed to work. *edit: Maybe a hydraulic motor where the fluid is turning a big impeller? Torque converter with an open side, kinda thing...
- amelius 5y ago
  Perhaps the CPU is rotating too? Wait, perhaps I should patent this idea first.
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    The amazing part of this is that each individual core makes contact with each region of the (obviously stationary) memory drum once per revolution, providing dynamic cache adjacency.
    - layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
      Mel nods in approval: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html
  - layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
    Make sure to incorporate an anti-twister mechanism for extra weirdness points: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-twister_mechanism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-twister_mechanism
- KMag 5y ago
  Right. High thermal gradients through ball bearings or roller bearings are tricky, and you don't get much contact area for thermal conduction in the bearing (meaning most bearing applications need to be mindful of cooling). (Pro tip from MIT 2.72: make sure to position bearings such that thermal stress from the shaft undergoing more thermal expansion than the rest of the machine doesn't jam the bearings.) I guess you'd want a bearing with sodium-potassium alloy (hazmat!) or mercury (hazmat!) or something. Or... make the casing for the shaft into a heat pipe with ammonia or alcohol vapor.
  - convolvatron 5y ago
    What about old style Babbitt bearings
    - KMag 5y ago
      You're right. Plain bearings provide plenty of contact surface for thermal conduction. Though, thermal expansion will tend to increase clearance and decrease contact area (ignoring differences in thermal expansion between dissimilar materials).
- drudu 5y ago
  A linked video claims that the commercial version attempts to transfer heat from one rotating metal surface to another (the the part that connects to the CPU and the bottom of the spinning thingy) separated by an extremely thin layer of air. This is "supposed to" transfer heat as if the metal is touching but "doesn't see to work very well in practice"
- icegreentea2 5y ago
  As described by the lab, the Sandia cooler predominantly transfers heat across an air-gap (maintained via self-generated fluid bearing) between the base plate and rotating impeller. As described, they claim that if they can maintain the air-gap to 10um, then they get a net win since the specific (per surface area) thermal resistance is sufficiently low (due to only being 10um), and the transfer surface area is comparatively enormous. Nevertheless, the air-gap still forms the dominant component of their overall thermal resistance. Reading through their posted development report [0], it's apparent that they were having trouble hitting that 10um target with their designs. Not exactly a surprise that this is the most difficult part. Not surprising that the "commercialized versions" (see other posts) don't use this mechanism. [0] https://ip.sandia.gov/techpdfs/Development%20of%20Sandia%20Cooler%20SAND2013-10712.pdf https://ip.sandia.gov/techpdfs/Development%20of%20Sandia%20C...
salawat 5y ago
Immediately popping into my mind: what rotates it to facilitate pumping, and also, if the top rotates, how is the thermal transmission between the baseplate and the rotating element being facilitated? It's either have to be through the axle, or you'd need some sort of lubricious, yet thermally conductive compound for the rotating element to flow through, which, not gonna lie, sounds pretty magic to me. Also, I'd need to look into the mechanics of this cylindrical impeller bit more. Boundary layers don't go away magically in laminar flow conditions. They might shrink, but they don't disappear. I also look at the center of their prototype, and all I see is a debris accumulation point that will become more and more obstructed over time in high debris concentration air. There isn't that much preventing dust build up on the top too, which I think may contribute to further build up. Noise, no comment, except I know that if you've got spinning parts you've got harmonics and vibration, audible or not. The burning question for me though, is how does it pan out in test designs. If it keeps stuff cooler under operating conditions, with better MTBF than what we're traditionally using, screw it, it's better. Especially since in a sense you're combining two distinct parts into a single one, which would in theory simplify fabrication. However, that looks to be all metal, so it may not be cheaper than a fan static heat sink combo. Be a fun thing to test and put through it's paces to be sure.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > what rotates it to facilitate pumping A motor. > how is the thermal transmission between the baseplate and the rotating element being facilitated Through the micro-meter thick air bearing.
dogma1138 5y ago
Because it doesn’t work https://youtu.be/oCghRn2Zae4 https://youtu.be/oCghRn2Zae4
- tzs 5y ago
  It would be interesting to see how that would work if you made bigger versions. It was a lot smaller than the others, and I'm curious if it would have to be as big as them to match them or if it would match them somewhere between its current size and their size. Also, I wonder how much details matter? That certainly looks quite a bit different from the Sandia unit. Sandia was claiming a large increase in efficiency over other units, and usually you only get that kind of increase with either a fundamental breakthrough or by using known methods but getting it all tweaked and tuned just right. I think Sandia's is the second kind.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  The conclusion of the video is that it does work, but the performance is not as good as the larger, traditional designs.
  - dogma1138 5y ago
    The performance is below low profile traditional coolers like the noctua too, it doesn’t work as in live up to it’s promise.
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      The Noctua was 37mm, the Sandia was 27mm. I don't have performance per unit volume stats, but I suspect the Sandia would perform well there. Performance per dollar, though... maybe not.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- caconym_ 5y ago
  It looks like that design has diverged significantly from the Sandia one, probably because they couldn't manage the tolerances the Sandia design needs. Given that it's a first attempt to bring the concept to market, and that it appears to be significantly compromised, I don't think "it doesn't work" is a fair characterization of the actual Sandia design. It might well be completely impractical for the commercial CPU cooler market, but it also might be the case that a bit more R&D and tooling up could get us a really effective new cooler design. Improvements could include [perceived] noise reduction as well as better efficacy.
hddherman 5y ago
There was this review done a while ago on a product similar to that design, but with some changes made: https://youtu.be/oCghRn2Zae4 https://youtu.be/oCghRn2Zae4
zinekeller 5y ago
ThermalTake has actually released one based on the Sandia design (and Cooler Master flirted with this one), but it's not really living on its promises. It works, but there's a lot of non-Sandia designs with comparable size that works as good or even better than ThermalTake's Sandia-like design. Reviews: Gamers Nexus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2tCnjb6lp8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2tCnjb6lp8 (video), https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2806-thermaltake-engine-27-review-vs-silverstone-and-cryorig/page-2 https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2806-thermaltake-engin... (text) Quote from Steve: "Ultimately, the Engine 27 isn’t a bad cooler – it performs about the same as similarly sized products, so it’s not some crime against humanity. That said, it’s priced significantly out of its performance bracket, and the high-pitched whine at max RPM can get a bit irritating. You’d want to run this at a lower RPM to account for that." Linus Tech Tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCghRn2Zae4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCghRn2Zae4 Quote from Linus: "The Thermaltake Engine 27 gets my "Better than Nothing" award for working better than I expected given its size, making it a great option if you don’t have anything else that will fit."
- Nursie 5y ago
  I have one of those I used in an SFF build, and I like it - it's pretty as well as low-profile. But it's no revolution, and only rated up to 70W. (UK Product page - https://uk.thermaltake.com/engine-27.html https://uk.thermaltake.com/engine-27.html)
Causality1 5y ago
I'm not clear on how high speed is supposed to eliminate fouling. Sure, particles are less likely to adhere but you're also increasing the number of particles.
- bestham 5y ago
  As the speed increases, the percentage of particles that stick declines quicker than the percentage increase in volume of air (and thus particles that may stick). How can you remove dust from a fan? One way is to increase the flow of air to “blow” away the dust. Same principle here.
  - Causality1 5y ago
    Just from observing dusty PC fans being turned up to higher speeds, I think the effectiveness would be limited. Most of the cleaning is accomplished from having air flow impact the surface at a different angle than usual, and at a much higher static pressure.
orliesaurus 5y ago
Pretty happy with my Noctua CPU cooler - I don't think it gets better than that with performance/noise for the price point (sub $100!) - has anyone found better coolers than those? Interested because I wanna build another PC soon!
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  But they don’t fit into the space requirements this cooler is designed against.
- RamRodification 5y ago
  I went with an AIO (all-in-one) water cooler for the first time in my latest PC build. Many PC cases today have an area in the front or at the top for a radiator and its fans. Mine is in the front and has 2x120mm fans that suck air in. I have the same amount of fans blowing air out (back+top). All four fans are running on very low RPM so it's very quiet. I really recommend this setup. I think 2x120mm is a sweet-spot for price/performance when it comes to radiator size. Smaller will require a louder fan. Bigger is obviously better but more expensive and might not fit your case. I used to have a big air cooler. One benefit that I didn't plan for is that I'm no longer worried about the stress on the motherboard mount from the heavy piece of metal hanging from it. Another is less stuff in the way since the bulk of the cooler is the radiator and fans off to the side.
  - bestham 5y ago
    I never understood why one would like to place the radiator at the inlet, thus heating the air inside the case. The hottest part is still the GPU (even if Intel tries their hardest to change that), and by placing the radiator at the inlet you are heating the air to cool the gpu with an additional 50-150 watt.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - RamRodification 5y ago
lou1306 5y ago
Since we're talking about CPU coolers, I hope my comment is not OT: what's with the recent popularity of tower coolers? They seem to pop up a lot in PC build discussions, lately. Am I in some echo chamber? Do they provide any obvious advantages over "traditional" coolers?
- RamRodification 5y ago
  Without really knowing what I'm talking about: It seems logical to me that a tower cooler can be more efficient because of less restriction in air flow (air blows straight through + can have one fan on each side) and possibly more efficient heat transportation through several heat pipes into a generally larger surface area.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    This, in theory. A heat pipe is much more effective at moving heat than conduction. It's also what laptops use. Big issue is that heat pipes usually work best upright and effectiveness (efficiency?) suffers in other orientations.
- Zancarius 5y ago
  I don't think it's recent. The first tower form factor cooler I bought was in 2011 or thereabouts. Part of the reason I bought that one when I did was because the stock cooler wasn't effective and the fan was incredibly loud (poor heat dissipation, small fan, high RPM). The tower coolers have a larger surface area and ship with larger/slower fans, reducing noise. They're probably still popular because they work, and they're the only air coolers I buy now.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  Top-blowers have been relegated to the low-cost / bundled category for ~15 years or so. Tower coolers are much better and fit better into the overall airflow of almost all cases. There are no high-performance top-blowers.
knolan 5y ago
I was working on a so called finless cooler around the time this first rose to prominence. The idea was that a toroidal vortex would give better heat transfer than a lot of fins subject to viscous shear. Our cooler was simply a folded aluminium sheet with a fan placed into a hole in the top. We had a somewhat similar couette type flow under our motor hub directly over the heat source. We had a modest 15% gain over a reference GPU cooler which was almost entirely due to the better thermal conductivity of the aluminium sheet over the cast heat sink in the reference design. It turned out that all that matters is cost, nothing else.
aristophenes 5y ago
> The “Sandia Cooler” architecture simultaneously eliminates all three of the drawbacks of conventional air-cooled heat exchanger technology ... and replaces them with brand new drawbacks that we aren’t sure how to mitigate
pontifier 5y ago
I've had some interesting ideas related to heat transfer that I haven't seen anyone try. First is using suction to remove hot air from deep inside a heatsink. This seems like it would work better than just randomly flinging heated air around. The second involves actually moving the heatsink. Imagine something like the Sandia cooler, but as a centerless ring about a foot in diameter, and spinning at only 1 rpm. The heat source would be at a spot under the spinning ring. A bushing would transfer heat by touching both the CPU and the ring. Each part of the ring has plenty of time to cool down a bit by the time it comes back around to touch the CPU again. Basically there is always cool metal on the other side of the bushing. These are both concepts I've thought a bit about, but just don't have time to work on.

82 points by RichardHeart 5y ago

The rotating mass of the heat sink would need an enclosure for safety reasons, negating most of the airflow advantages. "Transfer heat through an axle" sounds like one of those "draw the rest of the owl" steps too; no idea how that's supposed to work. *edit: Maybe a hydraulic motor where the fluid is turning a big impeller? Torque converter with an open side, kinda thing...

amelius 5y ago
Perhaps the CPU is rotating too? Wait, perhaps I should patent this idea first.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  The amazing part of this is that each individual core makes contact with each region of the (obviously stationary) memory drum once per revolution, providing dynamic cache adjacency.
  - layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
    Mel nods in approval: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html
- layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
  Make sure to incorporate an anti-twister mechanism for extra weirdness points: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-twister_mechanism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-twister_mechanism
KMag 5y ago
Right. High thermal gradients through ball bearings or roller bearings are tricky, and you don't get much contact area for thermal conduction in the bearing (meaning most bearing applications need to be mindful of cooling). (Pro tip from MIT 2.72: make sure to position bearings such that thermal stress from the shaft undergoing more thermal expansion than the rest of the machine doesn't jam the bearings.) I guess you'd want a bearing with sodium-potassium alloy (hazmat!) or mercury (hazmat!) or something. Or... make the casing for the shaft into a heat pipe with ammonia or alcohol vapor.
- convolvatron 5y ago
  What about old style Babbitt bearings
  - KMag 5y ago
    You're right. Plain bearings provide plenty of contact surface for thermal conduction. Though, thermal expansion will tend to increase clearance and decrease contact area (ignoring differences in thermal expansion between dissimilar materials).
drudu 5y ago
A linked video claims that the commercial version attempts to transfer heat from one rotating metal surface to another (the the part that connects to the CPU and the bottom of the spinning thingy) separated by an extremely thin layer of air. This is "supposed to" transfer heat as if the metal is touching but "doesn't see to work very well in practice"
icegreentea2 5y ago
As described by the lab, the Sandia cooler predominantly transfers heat across an air-gap (maintained via self-generated fluid bearing) between the base plate and rotating impeller. As described, they claim that if they can maintain the air-gap to 10um, then they get a net win since the specific (per surface area) thermal resistance is sufficiently low (due to only being 10um), and the transfer surface area is comparatively enormous. Nevertheless, the air-gap still forms the dominant component of their overall thermal resistance. Reading through their posted development report [0], it's apparent that they were having trouble hitting that 10um target with their designs. Not exactly a surprise that this is the most difficult part. Not surprising that the "commercialized versions" (see other posts) don't use this mechanism. [0] https://ip.sandia.gov/techpdfs/Development%20of%20Sandia%20Cooler%20SAND2013-10712.pdf https://ip.sandia.gov/techpdfs/Development%20of%20Sandia%20C...

salawat 5y ago

Immediately popping into my mind: what rotates it to facilitate pumping, and also, if the top rotates, how is the thermal transmission between the baseplate and the rotating element being facilitated? It's either have to be through the axle, or you'd need some sort of lubricious, yet thermally conductive compound for the rotating element to flow through, which, not gonna lie, sounds pretty magic to me. Also, I'd need to look into the mechanics of this cylindrical impeller bit more. Boundary layers don't go away magically in laminar flow conditions. They might shrink, but they don't disappear. I also look at the center of their prototype, and all I see is a debris accumulation point that will become more and more obstructed over time in high debris concentration air. There isn't that much preventing dust build up on the top too, which I think may contribute to further build up. Noise, no comment, except I know that if you've got spinning parts you've got harmonics and vibration, audible or not. The burning question for me though, is how does it pan out in test designs. If it keeps stuff cooler under operating conditions, with better MTBF than what we're traditionally using, screw it, it's better. Especially since in a sense you're combining two distinct parts into a single one, which would in theory simplify fabrication. However, that looks to be all metal, so it may not be cheaper than a fan static heat sink combo. Be a fun thing to test and put through it's paces to be sure.

chrisseaton 5y ago
> what rotates it to facilitate pumping A motor. > how is the thermal transmission between the baseplate and the rotating element being facilitated Through the micro-meter thick air bearing.

dogma1138 5y ago

Because it doesn’t work https://youtu.be/oCghRn2Zae4 https://youtu.be/oCghRn2Zae4

tzs 5y ago
It would be interesting to see how that would work if you made bigger versions. It was a lot smaller than the others, and I'm curious if it would have to be as big as them to match them or if it would match them somewhere between its current size and their size. Also, I wonder how much details matter? That certainly looks quite a bit different from the Sandia unit. Sandia was claiming a large increase in efficiency over other units, and usually you only get that kind of increase with either a fundamental breakthrough or by using known methods but getting it all tweaked and tuned just right. I think Sandia's is the second kind.
AussieWog93 5y ago
The conclusion of the video is that it does work, but the performance is not as good as the larger, traditional designs.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  The performance is below low profile traditional coolers like the noctua too, it doesn’t work as in live up to it’s promise.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    The Noctua was 37mm, the Sandia was 27mm. I don't have performance per unit volume stats, but I suspect the Sandia would perform well there. Performance per dollar, though... maybe not.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
caconym_ 5y ago
It looks like that design has diverged significantly from the Sandia one, probably because they couldn't manage the tolerances the Sandia design needs. Given that it's a first attempt to bring the concept to market, and that it appears to be significantly compromised, I don't think "it doesn't work" is a fair characterization of the actual Sandia design. It might well be completely impractical for the commercial CPU cooler market, but it also might be the case that a bit more R&D and tooling up could get us a really effective new cooler design. Improvements could include [perceived] noise reduction as well as better efficacy.

hddherman 5y ago

There was this review done a while ago on a product similar to that design, but with some changes made: https://youtu.be/oCghRn2Zae4 https://youtu.be/oCghRn2Zae4

zinekeller 5y ago

ThermalTake has actually released one based on the Sandia design (and Cooler Master flirted with this one), but it's not really living on its promises. It works, but there's a lot of non-Sandia designs with comparable size that works as good or even better than ThermalTake's Sandia-like design. Reviews: Gamers Nexus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2tCnjb6lp8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2tCnjb6lp8 (video), https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2806-thermaltake-engine-27-review-vs-silverstone-and-cryorig/page-2 https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2806-thermaltake-engin... (text) Quote from Steve: "Ultimately, the Engine 27 isn’t a bad cooler – it performs about the same as similarly sized products, so it’s not some crime against humanity. That said, it’s priced significantly out of its performance bracket, and the high-pitched whine at max RPM can get a bit irritating. You’d want to run this at a lower RPM to account for that." Linus Tech Tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCghRn2Zae4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCghRn2Zae4 Quote from Linus: "The Thermaltake Engine 27 gets my "Better than Nothing" award for working better than I expected given its size, making it a great option if you don’t have anything else that will fit."

Nursie 5y ago
I have one of those I used in an SFF build, and I like it - it's pretty as well as low-profile. But it's no revolution, and only rated up to 70W. (UK Product page - https://uk.thermaltake.com/engine-27.html https://uk.thermaltake.com/engine-27.html)

Causality1 5y ago

I'm not clear on how high speed is supposed to eliminate fouling. Sure, particles are less likely to adhere but you're also increasing the number of particles.

bestham 5y ago
As the speed increases, the percentage of particles that stick declines quicker than the percentage increase in volume of air (and thus particles that may stick). How can you remove dust from a fan? One way is to increase the flow of air to “blow” away the dust. Same principle here.
- Causality1 5y ago
  Just from observing dusty PC fans being turned up to higher speeds, I think the effectiveness would be limited. Most of the cleaning is accomplished from having air flow impact the surface at a different angle than usual, and at a much higher static pressure.

orliesaurus 5y ago

Pretty happy with my Noctua CPU cooler - I don't think it gets better than that with performance/noise for the price point (sub $100!) - has anyone found better coolers than those? Interested because I wanna build another PC soon!

chrisseaton 5y ago
But they don’t fit into the space requirements this cooler is designed against.
RamRodification 5y ago
I went with an AIO (all-in-one) water cooler for the first time in my latest PC build. Many PC cases today have an area in the front or at the top for a radiator and its fans. Mine is in the front and has 2x120mm fans that suck air in. I have the same amount of fans blowing air out (back+top). All four fans are running on very low RPM so it's very quiet. I really recommend this setup. I think 2x120mm is a sweet-spot for price/performance when it comes to radiator size. Smaller will require a louder fan. Bigger is obviously better but more expensive and might not fit your case. I used to have a big air cooler. One benefit that I didn't plan for is that I'm no longer worried about the stress on the motherboard mount from the heavy piece of metal hanging from it. Another is less stuff in the way since the bulk of the cooler is the radiator and fans off to the side.
- bestham 5y ago
  I never understood why one would like to place the radiator at the inlet, thus heating the air inside the case. The hottest part is still the GPU (even if Intel tries their hardest to change that), and by placing the radiator at the inlet you are heating the air to cool the gpu with an additional 50-150 watt.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - RamRodification 5y ago

lou1306 5y ago

Since we're talking about CPU coolers, I hope my comment is not OT: what's with the recent popularity of tower coolers? They seem to pop up a lot in PC build discussions, lately. Am I in some echo chamber? Do they provide any obvious advantages over "traditional" coolers?

RamRodification 5y ago
Without really knowing what I'm talking about: It seems logical to me that a tower cooler can be more efficient because of less restriction in air flow (air blows straight through + can have one fan on each side) and possibly more efficient heat transportation through several heat pipes into a generally larger surface area.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  This, in theory. A heat pipe is much more effective at moving heat than conduction. It's also what laptops use. Big issue is that heat pipes usually work best upright and effectiveness (efficiency?) suffers in other orientations.
Zancarius 5y ago
I don't think it's recent. The first tower form factor cooler I bought was in 2011 or thereabouts. Part of the reason I bought that one when I did was because the stock cooler wasn't effective and the fan was incredibly loud (poor heat dissipation, small fan, high RPM). The tower coolers have a larger surface area and ship with larger/slower fans, reducing noise. They're probably still popular because they work, and they're the only air coolers I buy now.
formerly_proven 5y ago
Top-blowers have been relegated to the low-cost / bundled category for ~15 years or so. Tower coolers are much better and fit better into the overall airflow of almost all cases. There are no high-performance top-blowers.

knolan 5y ago

I was working on a so called finless cooler around the time this first rose to prominence. The idea was that a toroidal vortex would give better heat transfer than a lot of fins subject to viscous shear. Our cooler was simply a folded aluminium sheet with a fan placed into a hole in the top. We had a somewhat similar couette type flow under our motor hub directly over the heat source. We had a modest 15% gain over a reference GPU cooler which was almost entirely due to the better thermal conductivity of the aluminium sheet over the cast heat sink in the reference design. It turned out that all that matters is cost, nothing else.

aristophenes 5y ago

> The “Sandia Cooler” architecture simultaneously eliminates all three of the drawbacks of conventional air-cooled heat exchanger technology ... and replaces them with brand new drawbacks that we aren’t sure how to mitigate

pontifier 5y ago

I've had some interesting ideas related to heat transfer that I haven't seen anyone try. First is using suction to remove hot air from deep inside a heatsink. This seems like it would work better than just randomly flinging heated air around. The second involves actually moving the heatsink. Imagine something like the Sandia cooler, but as a centerless ring about a foot in diameter, and spinning at only 1 rpm. The heat source would be at a spot under the spinning ring. A bushing would transfer heat by touching both the CPU and the ring. Each part of the ring has plenty of time to cool down a bit by the time it comes back around to touch the CPU again. Basically there is always cool metal on the other side of the bushing. These are both concepts I've thought a bit about, but just don't have time to work on.