Thermal Performance Evaluation of Friction Stir Welded and Bolted Cold Plates with Al/Cu Interface

An attempt is made to design and fabricate a cold plate with aluminum-copper dissimilar interface joined by friction stir welding. Optimum welding conditions for obtaining sound-quality corner and T joints with an aluminum-copper interface were established. Welded cross sections of the friction stir welded cold plate were analyzed to understand the bonding characteristics. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to evaluate the fluid-flow characteristics and thermal resistance of friction stir welded cold plate and the resulted are compared with the conventional bolted cold plate configuration. For CFD modeling of a cold plate with a dissimilar interface, a new methodology is proposed. From the CFD analysis and experimental results, it is observed that friction stir welded cold plate offered better thermal performance compared to the bolted cold plate and it is due to the metallurgical bonding at the aluminum-copper interface with the dispersion of copper particles.