With smartphones today acting as pocket PCs used by users for almost everything, including gaming, manufacturers are forced to find innovative ways to keep their devices cool. Xiaomi is one of them, and it introduced its latest technology to keep their phones cool: a small heat pipe mechanism called Loop LiquidCool. . .
Engineers aren’t able to drill vents into devices, and while it’s often said that the entire chassis acts as some kind of heatsink, the thinness required by the devices renders the traditional PC cooler solution useless. In the past, solutions for cooling devices have included thermal diffusion sheets or pads, steam chambers and heat pipes. This is where Xiaomi’s LiquidCool comes into play.
This method can be described as a liquid cooling design that uses at least some liquid and does not involve a mechanical pump or other device. Xiaomi’s new cooling technology basically consists of an evaporator, a condenser, a refill chamber, and a looped heat pipe containing gas and liquid pipes.
The evaporator has refrigerant that evaporates into gas when the smartphone heats up under high workload. The gas and air stream spreads to the condenser where the gas turns back to liquid. Liquid is collected by suction through tiny fibers in the refill chamber that refills the evaporator, and the process starts over, all moving in one direction.
One-way circulation is provided by the Tesla valve inside the evaporator. Of course, at this point, it may be worth mentioning that this system is not Elon Musk’s automobile company, but an invention of engineering icon Nicola Tesla. The Tesla valve allows liquid to pass through the evaporator while keeping it from moving in the wrong direction.
- Nikola Tesla and his 5 Great Inventions!
In the past, Xiaomi phones, like many Samsung smartphones, used steam rooms. However, the manufacturer thinks choosing a one-way closed-loop design instead of a separate gas and liquid duct chamber will reduce air resistance by 30 percent and allow a smoother airflow to cool the object. The company claims that the design increases the heat transfer capacity by 100 percent over the traditional steam room method.
Xiaomi says its inspiration comes from the aviation industry. Heat pipes have also been used on NASA missions, but have also been used in smartphones for some time. Fujitsu demonstrated a similar scheme for a 1mm metal-plate heatpipe used in smartphones called Liquid Loop Cooling in 2015.
Tesla valve by XiaomiXiaomiWhile it’s debatable whether it’s a breakthrough technology or not, it can be safely predicted that it will likely do its job, or at least be better than Xiaomi’s steam room designs.
The company tested Loop LiquidCool on a custom Xiaomi MIX4. The system managed to keep the device under 47.7°C during 30 minutes of Genshin Impact gameplay running at 60fps at maximum video settings. For reference, the sensation of heat around 45°C turns into pain. Xiaomi says the new system will keep it 8.6°C cooler than the previous standard version of the pants without Loop LiquidCool.
The company also states that the system is thin and flexible enough to be stacked in future designs, and is targeting mass production of the technology in the H2 2022. . .
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