TWI874175B - Fan frame with passageway - Google Patents

Abstract

A fan frame with passageway includes a base plate, a first side wall, a second side wall, and a cover plate. The first side wall and the second side wall extend along an axis direction from opposite sides of the base plate, and the first side wall has a plurality of first inclined passageway. The cover plate is connected to the first side wall and the second side wall, enclosing a guide space with the base plate, and opening at least one inlet in the cover plate. The cover plate, the base plate, the first side wall, and the second side wall enclose a first outlet. When a first heat sink is disposed on the first outlet, a centrifugal airflow generated by a fan within the guide space is directed towards a plurality of first heat fins of the first radiator by the first inclined passageway.

Description

Fan frame with air flow guide grooves

The present invention relates to a fan frame, and more particularly to a fan frame with air flow guide grooves.

In existing electronic devices such as computers or servers, since high-heat-generating electronic components such as CPUs or GPUs often generate a large amount of heat during operation, some heat dissipation modules are usually provided to help the electronic components dissipate heat.

Generally speaking, in the field of heat dissipation technology, traditional air cooling is the most common, and air cooling mainly uses fans to force air flow through the heat sink that is thermally connected to the electronic components to accelerate the heat dissipation efficiency of the electronic components.

When air cooling is used to cool the processor of a home host, most designs directly assemble the fan on the heat sink, and the heat sink is directly thermally connected to the electronic components through thermal paste; however, when air cooling is used to cool the server, due to the limited space inside the server, the heat sink is usually not installed directly on the processor, but a heat pipe is used to guide the heat of the processor to the air outlet of the fan.

Please refer to the first and second figures. The first figure is a plane diagram showing a heat dissipation module of the prior art for dissipating heat from electronic components; the second figure is a three-dimensional diagram showing a heat dissipation module of the prior art. As shown in the first and second figures, in order to dissipate heat from a central processing unit (CPU) PA1 and a graphics processing unit (GPU) PA2 inside a server, the prior art, for example, sets a fan module PA3 on one side of the central processing unit PA1 and sets a fan module PA4 on one side of the graphics processing unit PA2, so as to use the fan modules PA3 and PA4 to dissipate heat from the central processing unit PA1 and the graphics processing unit PA2 respectively.

Taking the fan module PA3 as an example, since the fan module PA3 is disposed on one side of the CPU PA1 and has two air outlets PA31 and PA32, a heat sink PA5 is also disposed at the air outlet PA31, and a heat pipe PA6 is used to thermally connect the heat sink PA5 and the CPU PA1. Similarly, a heat sink PA7 is also disposed at the air outlet PA32, and the heat sink PA7 is also thermally connected to the CPU PA1 through a heat pipe PA8.

As mentioned above, the heat transfer principle of heat pipes PA7 and PA8 is that the phase change refrigerant in the pipe absorbs heat at the hot end (such as the central processing unit PA1) and vaporizes into a gaseous refrigerant, then flows to the cold end (such as the air outlet PA32) to dissipate heat and cool down to condense into a liquid refrigerant, and then flows back to the hot end through the capillary structure in the pipe to absorb heat, thereby transferring heat energy in a cycle.

Taking the heat pipe PA7 as an example, since the air outlet PA31 has a certain length, the gaseous refrigerant inside the heat pipe PA7 is often gradually cooled and condensed and refluxed when approaching the air outlet PA31, and thus cannot flow to the end of the heat pipe PA7, resulting in an ineffective heat exchange area of the heat pipe PA7 at the air outlet PA31. On the other hand, the heat pipe PA7 is mainly thermally connected to the radiator PA5, so as to exchange heat with the heat dissipation airflow generated by the fan module PA3 through the radiator PA5 disposed at the air outlet PA31. However, since the effective area for heat exchange between the radiator PA5 and the heat dissipation airflow depends on the area of the fins, rather than the body of the radiator PA5 connected to the heat pipe PA7, it is easy for the body of the radiator PA5 to block part of the air outlet PA31 and affect the overall heat exchange efficiency.

In view of the fact that in the prior art, the existing air cooling technology often has poor heat dissipation efficiency due to the configuration problem of heat pipes and heat sinks; therefore, the main purpose of the present invention is to provide a fan frame with airflow guide grooves, which can improve the overall heat dissipation efficiency without changing the existing configuration relationship between heat pipes and heat sinks.

The present invention solves the problems of the prior art by adopting a necessary technical means of providing a fan frame with an airflow guide groove for mounting a fan and used in conjunction with a first heat sink. The first heat sink includes a first heat sink plate and a plurality of first heat sink fins. The fan frame with the airflow guide groove includes a bottom plate, a first side wall, a second side wall and a cover plate.

The first side wall is formed by extending from one side of the bottom plate along an axial direction and has a plurality of first oblique guide grooves. Each of the first oblique guide grooves extends along an inclined direction, and the inclined direction is inclined to the axial direction.

The second side wall is formed by extending along the axial direction from the other side of the bottom plate opposite to the first side wall.

The cover plate is connected to the first side wall and the second side wall, and forms a guide space with the bottom plate, and is provided with at least one cover plate air inlet connected to the guide space, and the cover plate further forms a first air outlet with the bottom plate, the first side wall and the second side wall, the first heat sink is arranged at the first air outlet, and each of the first inclined guide grooves extends from the cover plate along the inclined direction toward the first air outlet to the bottom plate.

The first heat sink is adjacent to the cover plate, the first heat sink fins are integrally formed from the first heat sink and extend toward the bottom plate and are distributed at the first air outlet, and the fan is rotatably disposed in the flow guide space to generate a centrifugal airflow, thereby guiding the centrifugal airflow to flow toward the first heat sink fins along the inclined direction through the first oblique guide grooves.

In an auxiliary technical means derived from the above-mentioned necessary technical means, the base plate includes a first end edge, a second end edge, a first side edge and a second side edge, the first end edge extends along a first direction, the second end edge extends along a second direction perpendicular to the first direction, the first side edge and the second side edge are respectively bent from two ends of the first end edge to two ends of the second end edge, and the axial direction is perpendicular to the first direction and the second direction.

In an auxiliary technical means derived from the above necessary technical means, the bottom plate has a fan assembly structure, which extends along the axial direction for the fan to be installed. Preferably, the bottom plate is further provided with a plurality of bottom plate air inlets, which are arranged around the fan assembly structure.

As described above, since the fan frame with airflow guide grooves of the present invention is provided with a plurality of first oblique guide grooves on the first side wall, when the fan generates centrifugal airflow in the guide space, the centrifugal airflow will be guided by the first oblique guide grooves and flow toward the bottom plate and the first air outlet, thereby increasing the flow rate passing through the first heat sink fin and effectively increasing the overall heat dissipation efficiency.

The specific embodiments of the present invention will be further described by the following embodiments and drawings.

Please refer to the third and fourth figures, the third figure is a three-dimensional schematic diagram showing the fan frame with airflow guide grooves provided by the first preferred embodiment of the present invention; the fourth figure is a three-dimensional schematic diagram showing a partial cross-section of the fan frame with airflow guide grooves provided by the first preferred embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in the third and fourth figures, a fan frame 100 with airflow guide grooves includes a bottom plate 1, a first side wall 2, a second side wall 3 and a cover plate 4.

The bottom plate 1 includes a first end 11, a second end 12, a first side 13 and a second side 14. The first end 11 extends along a first direction D1, the second end 12 extends along a second direction D2 perpendicular to the first direction D1, and the first side 13 and the second side 14 bend from two ends of the first end 11 to two ends of the second end 12, respectively.

As mentioned above, the bottom plate 1 also has a fan assembly structure 15, which extends along an axial direction D3 perpendicular to the first direction D1 and the second direction D2, for installing a fan 200. In addition, the bottom plate 1 is also provided with a plurality of bottom plate air inlets 16 (only one is marked in the figure), and the plurality of bottom plate air inlets 16 are arranged around the fan assembly structure 15 as the center.

The first side wall 2 is formed by extending from the first side edge 13 of the bottom plate 1 along the axial direction D3 and has a plurality of first oblique guide grooves 21 (only one is marked in the figure). Each first oblique guide groove 21 extends along an oblique direction D4 inclined to the axial direction D3.

The second side wall 3 is formed by extending from the other side of the bottom plate 1 relative to the first side wall 2 along the axial direction D3. In addition, in this embodiment, although only the first side wall 2 has a plurality of first oblique guide grooves 21, in other embodiments, the second side wall 3 may also have a plurality of second oblique guide grooves (not shown) extending in the same direction as the first oblique guide grooves 21.

The cover plate 4 is connected to the first side wall 2 and the second side wall 3, and forms a guide space S1 with the bottom plate 1, and the cover plate 4 is provided with a cover plate air inlet 41 connected to the guide space S1; in addition, the cover plate 4 further forms a first air outlet F1 and a second air outlet F2 with the bottom plate 1, the first side wall 2 and the second side wall 3.

As mentioned above, since the fan 200 is rotatably disposed in the guide space S1 via the fan assembly structure 15, when the fan 200 is running, the fan 200 will inhale airflow from the cover plate air inlet 41 and the bottom plate air inlet 16, thereby generating a centrifugal airflow (not shown) in the guide space S1, and since the centrifugal airflow flows in a spiral from the inside to the outside, the centrifugal airflow will flow in all directions in the guide space S1 toward the first side wall 2, the second side wall 3, the first air outlet F1 and the second air outlet F2, and the centrifugal airflow flowing toward the first side wall 2 will be guided by the first oblique guide groove 21 and flow toward the bottom plate 1 at the first air outlet F1.

Please continue to refer to the fifth figure, which is a three-dimensional schematic diagram showing the use of the fan frame with airflow guide grooves provided by the first preferred embodiment of the present invention in conjunction with the first heat sink.

As shown in the third to fifth figures, in actual use, the user can install a heat pipe 400 assembled with a first heat sink 300 at the first air outlet F1 of the fan frame 100 with airflow guide grooves of the present invention, so that the first heat sink 300 can receive the centrifugal airflow provided by the fan 200 at the first air outlet F1. Although only the first air outlet F1 is used as an example in this embodiment, in practice, a second heat sink 300' (marked in the seventh figure) can also be set at the second air outlet F2.

As mentioned above, the first heat sink 300 includes a first heat sink 301 and a plurality of first heat sink fins 302 (only one is marked in the figure). The first heat sink 301 is attached to the cover plate 4, and the plurality of first heat sink fins 302 are integrally formed from the first heat sink 301 and extend toward the base plate 1 and are distributed at the first air outlet F1. Thereby, when the centrifugal airflow in the guide space S1 is guided by the first oblique guide groove 21, it will flow toward the first heat sink fins 302, so as to improve the efficiency of the first heat sink 300 in cooling the heat pipe 400.

Please continue to refer to the sixth figure, which is a three-dimensional schematic diagram of a fan frame with airflow guide grooves provided by the second preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in the third to sixth figures, a fan frame 100a with airflow guide grooves includes a bottom plate 1a, a first side wall 2a, a second side wall 3a and a cover plate 4a; wherein, the fan frame 100a with airflow guide grooves is a similar structure with the fan frame 100 with airflow guide grooves described above being opposite in left and right, and a plurality of first oblique guide grooves 21a (only one is marked in the figure) are also provided in the first side wall 2a.

Please continue to refer to FIG. 7, which is a schematic plan view of the fan frame with airflow guide grooves of the present invention when it is actually used. As shown in FIG. 3 to FIG. 7, in actual use, the user can respectively set the fan frames 100 and 100a with airflow guide grooves on both sides of the two electronic components 500 and 600, and then use the heat pipe 400 to thermally connect the electronic component 500 to the first heat sink 300 set at the first air outlet F1 and the second heat sink 300' set at the second air outlet F2; on the other hand, the electronic component 600 can also use the heat pipe 400 to thermally connect to the first heat sink 300a and the second heat sink 300a' set at the first air outlet F1a and the second air outlet F2a of the fan frame 100a with airflow guide grooves.

In summary, compared to the prior art air cooling heat dissipation technology which often has the problem of poor heat dissipation efficiency due to the configuration problem of heat pipes and heat sinks, the fan frame with airflow guide grooves provided by the present invention can guide the centrifugal airflow generated by the fan to flow toward the bottom plate and the first air outlet through a plurality of first oblique guide grooves provided on the first side wall, so that most of the centrifugal airflow directly passes through the first heat sink fin extending toward the bottom plate at the first air outlet, thereby avoiding the centrifugal airflow from directly hitting the first heat sink adjacent to the cover plate at the first air outlet and causing turbulence. Therefore, the fan frame with airflow guide grooves of the present invention can indeed guide most of the centrifugal airflow to blow directly toward the first heat sink fin through a plurality of first oblique guide grooves to improve the overall heat dissipation efficiency.

The fan frame with airflow guide grooves provided in the preferred embodiment of the present invention can be installed in, for example, a server host, which can be used for artificial intelligence (AI) computing, edge computing, etc., and can also be used as a 5G server, cloud server, or car networking server.

The above detailed description of the preferred specific embodiments is intended to more clearly describe the features and spirit of the present invention, but is not intended to limit the scope of the present invention by the preferred specific embodiments disclosed above. On the contrary, the purpose is to cover various changes and arrangements with equivalents within the scope of the patent application for the present invention.

PA1: Central Processing Unit

PA2: Graphics Processor

PA3: Fan module

PA31,PA32: air outlet

PA4: Fan module

PA5: Radiator

PA6: Heat pipe

PA7: Radiator

PA8: Heat pipe

100,100a: Fan frame with airflow guide grooves

1,1a: Bottom plate

11: First end edge

12: Second end edge

13: First side

14: Second side

15: Fan assembly structure

16: Bottom plate air inlet

2,2a: First side wall

21,21a: First oblique guide groove

3,3a: Second side wall

4,4a: Cover plate

41: Cover air inlet

200: Fan

300,300a: First radiator

300',300a': Second radiator

301: First heat sink

302: First heat sink fin

400: Heat pipe

D1: First direction

D2: Second direction

D3: Axial

D4: Tilt direction

S1: diversion space

F1, F1a: First air outlet

F2, F2a: Second air outlet

The first figure is a plane diagram showing a heat dissipation module of the prior art used for heat dissipation of electronic components; The second figure is a three-dimensional diagram showing a heat dissipation module of the prior art; The third figure is a three-dimensional diagram showing a fan frame with airflow guide grooves provided by the first preferred embodiment of the present invention; The fourth figure is a three-dimensional diagram showing a partial cross-section of the fan frame with airflow guide grooves provided by the first preferred embodiment of the present invention; The fifth figure is a three-dimensional diagram showing the fan frame with airflow guide grooves provided by the first preferred embodiment of the present invention used in conjunction with the first heat sink; The sixth figure is a three-dimensional diagram showing the fan frame with airflow guide grooves provided by the second preferred embodiment of the present invention; and The seventh figure is a plane diagram showing the fan frame with airflow guide grooves of the present invention in actual application.

100: Fan frame with airflow guide grooves

1: Base plate

2: First side wall

21: First oblique guide groove

3: Second side wall

4: Cover plate

41: Cover air inlet

200: Fan

S1: diversion space

F1: First air outlet

F2: Second air outlet

Claims (4)

A fan frame with airflow guide grooves is used for mounting a fan and is used in conjunction with a first heat sink, the first heat sink comprising a first heat sink and a plurality of first heat sink fins. The fan frame with airflow guide grooves comprises: a bottom plate; a first side wall, formed by extending from one side of the bottom plate along an axial direction and having a plurality of first oblique guide grooves, each of which extends along an inclined direction, and the inclined direction is inclined to the axial direction; a second side wall, formed by extending from the other side of the bottom plate relative to the first side wall along the axial direction; and A cover plate is connected to the first side wall and the second side wall, and forms a flow guide space with the bottom plate, and is provided with at least one cover plate air inlet connected to the flow guide space, and the cover plate further forms a first air outlet with the bottom plate, the first side wall and the second side wall, the first heat sink is arranged at the first air outlet, and each of the first oblique guide grooves extends from the cover plate along the oblique direction toward the first air outlet to the bottom plate; The first heat sink is adjacent to the cover plate, the first heat sink fins are integrally formed from the first heat sink and extend toward the bottom plate and are distributed at the first air outlet, and the fan is rotatably disposed in the flow guide space to generate a centrifugal airflow, thereby guiding the centrifugal airflow to flow toward the first heat sink fins along the inclined direction through the first oblique guide grooves. A fan frame with airflow guide grooves as described in claim 1, wherein the base plate includes a first end edge, a second end edge, a first side edge and a second side edge, the first end edge extends along a first direction, the second end edge extends along a second direction perpendicular to the first direction, the first side edge and the second side edge are respectively bent from two ends of the first end edge to two ends of the second end edge and extend, and the axial direction is perpendicular to the first direction and the second direction. A fan frame with airflow guide grooves as described in claim 1, wherein the base plate has a fan assembly structure, and the fan assembly structure extends along the axial direction for the fan to be installed. As described in claim 3, the fan frame with airflow guide grooves, wherein the base plate is further provided with a plurality of base plate air inlets, and the base plate air inlets are arranged in a circumferential manner with the fan assembly structure as the center.

Images