Performance Measurement of Liquid-Cooled Cold Plates for Humanoid Robot Cooling

In this study, we compare thermal performance between one metallic cold plate and three different types of non-metallic cold plates for humanoid robot cooling. The four types of cold plates have the same dimension of 20×20 mm² base area with 7 mm high. A metallic cold plate is made of copper. Three non-metallic PC (polycarbonate) cold plates, which are designed to reduce the overall weight of robot cooling system, are composed of a polycarbonate cover with three different base shapes. All cold plates are mounted on a 20×20 mm² copper heating block with two cartridge heaters of 30 W/cm². The overall heat transfer coefficients per unit mass and thermal resistances are obtained for the liquid-cooled cold plates. It is interesting to note that the PC cold plate with an aluminum base plate with 18 channels shows the best heat transfer performance per unit mass. Most polycarbonate cold plates display fairly comparable thermal performance with more reduced weight compared to a conventional copper cold plate.