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UWE Bristol Engineering showcase 2015

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Joshua Giffin<br />

BEng – Mechanical <strong>Engineering</strong><br />

Project Supervisor<br />

Rohitha Weerasinghe<br />

DESIGN OF A PRODUCT CAPEABLE OF UTILISING COMPUTER WASTE HEAT<br />

Introduction<br />

The computer industry is a very large one with the vast majority of people using them daily. Such computers generate and output heat due to<br />

inefficiency's. My project is based around designing a component to utilize this waste heat converting it back into useable power. This component is<br />

designed to be set up and left within a computer case, charging reusable battery's overtime, these can be detached and taken around with the user to<br />

charge devices on the go.<br />

While it is true that almost all components within a computer that run on electricity generate heat, it’s clear that the main heat emitting components<br />

within modern computers are the CPU and GPU, due to the fact that in comparison to the other components they need much more power in order to<br />

operate, after initially looking at ways to capture and utilise the heat from each component individually, I discovered water-cooling and started creating a<br />

design capable of utilising the heat from all components as it’s being transferred through a water-cooling loop.<br />

Concept<br />

This project investigates and leads to the design of a closed loop design that has similarity's<br />

with the Rankine cycle. The design consists of a shell and tube heat exchanger that transfers<br />

heat into the closed loop design from the computers water-cooling loop, a generator to take<br />

advantage of generated velocity's and a water-cooling radiator to cool the coolant , allowing<br />

pressure differentials to occur and movement within the loop to occur.<br />

Background Research<br />

My initial research was into computers and their main heat<br />

emitting components. This lead me into water-cooling<br />

designs and hence ultimately to my final design idea.<br />

I was then able to look into and determine values such as<br />

the water-cooling loops mass flow rate alongside average<br />

ambient / computer running temperatures. Which were<br />

later used within the heat exchanger design process.<br />

Heat Exchanger Design<br />

An eight step design process was used to design the heat exchanger, this started off with<br />

me specifying the mass flow rate and each flows inlet and outlet temperatures which were<br />

determined by research and logical evaluation. A shell and tube design was used due to it<br />

being compact, this feature ties in nicely with this design due to the limited space available.<br />

Following this the LMTD correction factor was determined. I decided to I chose to use a<br />

staggered flow pipe design over an in-line design due to the fact that staggered flow<br />

designs create more turbulence, something my design logically does not have much of due<br />

to low flow speeds and compact spaces. Turbulence will theoretically help my design<br />

transfer heat more efficiently.<br />

Further Work<br />

Future work for this project includes additional investigations into generators alongside optimizations in order to improve how much<br />

power can be generated over a given time period. Additionally, methods of velocity manipulation could be investigated and if suitable<br />

implemented into the design.<br />

Project summary<br />

The project revolved around the design of a<br />

component that is capable of generating<br />

useable power over time, this component is<br />

to be set up within a computer case and run<br />

using a computers waste heat.<br />

Project Objectives<br />

• The component is to be designed to take<br />

advantage of the current mounting system<br />

within computer cases, that are otherwise<br />

used for attaching radiators or fans.<br />

• To fully investigate all factors that would<br />

impact my design, including; mass flow rate<br />

of a computers water-cooling loop,<br />

standard pipe sizing's, heat dissipation<br />

techniques in a small area.<br />

• Design of a closed loop system, that<br />

involves a heat exchanger, generator and<br />

cooling system, in order to run in a similar<br />

fashion to the Rankine cycle.<br />

• To have the fluid flow throughout my<br />

design naturally through pressure<br />

differentials due to temperature changes.<br />

Project Conclusion<br />

In conclusion, the conducted background<br />

research and investigations have been<br />

informative and successful ultimately leading<br />

me to my current design, involving a heavily<br />

optimized heat exchanger that is well suited,<br />

size and performance wise to being used with<br />

computer cases after many iterations and<br />

optimizations throughout the process.

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