Thermal Management

Thermal Mangement

The performance and reliability of high-power Naval electronics warfare systems is threatened by operation at high temperatures. Thus, next-generation power electronics need to dissipate extreme heat fluxes. Reliable insertion of transformative two-phase embedded cooling strategies will allow further increases in power density that can provide tactical advantages to the warfighter in next-generation systems. The research outputs are also expected to have broader impacts on clean energy technologies, hybridized transportation systems, and other increasingly electrified Naval platforms that will rely on high-performance thermal management strategies to provide reliable operation.

Reliability of Next-Generation Thermal Management Systems for High-Power Naval Electronics

Legacy ‘remote cooling’ thermal management architectures restrict the removal of heat through a high-resistance pathway to the liquid coolant, and often limit the device performance and reductions in size/weight of these systems. This project focuses on the interplay between fundamental mechanisms that improve or degrade these systems’ performance.  The shift to an ‘embedded cooling’ paradigm, with integrated manifold microchannels offering direct contact between the coolant and substrate, could offer transformational improvement in the heat dissipation performance. This dramatic change in the system architecture may introduce new reliability concerns into both thermal management and electronics systems. The long-term effects of this innovative cooling technology on the reliability of the electronics must be established prior to wide spread adoption.

Dryout Hydrodynamics and Bubble Departure During High-Heat-Flux Boiling Processes

Naval vessels and aircraft are equipped with increasingly advanced electronic systems that require high-density cooling strategies to enable reductions in size, weight, and power without compromising performance; these cooling technologies typically rely on boiling processes. This project investigates the effects of heterogeneous surface wettability on critical pool boiling phenomena. Dryout of the boiling surface severely limits heat transfer in boiling applications. The primary goal is to gain a better understanding of how surface wettabiliity influences the hydrodynamics and rewetting phenomena that lead to dryout. This will facilitate rational design of surfaces that may improve the heat flux capacity of boiling surfaces.

Publications

K. P. Drummond, D. Back, M. D. Sinanis, D. B. Janes, and D. Peroulis, J. A. Weibel, and S. V. Garimella, Characterization of hierarchical manifold microchannel heat sink arrays under simultaneous background and hotspot heating conditions, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 126A, pp. 1289-1301, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2018.05.127

T. P. Allred, J.A. Weibel, and S.V. Garimella, Enabling highly effective boiling from superhydrophobic surfaces, Physical Review Letters 120, 174501, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.174501 (Featured on Cover; Volume 120, Issue 17)

T. A. Kingston, J. A. Weibel, and S. V. Garimella, High-frequency thermal-fluidic characterization of dynamic microchannel flow boiling instabilities: Part 1 - rapid-bubble-growth instability at the onset of boiling, International Journal of Multiphase Flow (In Press). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmultiphaseflow.2018.05.007

T. A. Kingston, J. A. Weibel, and S. V. Garimella, High-frequency thermal-fluidic characterization of dynamic microchannel flow boiling instabilities: Part 2 - impact of operating conditions on instability type and severity, International Journal of Multiphase Flow (In Press). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmultiphaseflow.2018.05.001

T. Van Oevelen, J.A. Weibel, and S.V. Garimella, The effect of lateral thermal coupling between parallel microchannels on two-phase flow distribution, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 124, pp. 769–781, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2018.03.073

K. P. Drummond, D. Back, M. D. Sinanis, D. B. Janes, D. Peroulis, J. A. Weibel, and S. V. Garimella, A hierarchical manifold microchannel heat sink array for high-heat-flux two-phase cooling of electronics, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 117, pp. 319–330, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2017.10.015

H. Hu, M. Chakraborty, T. P. Allred, J. A. Weibel, and S. V. Garimella, Multiscale modeling of the three-dimensional meniscus shape of a wetting liquid film on micro-/nano-structured surfaces, Langmuir, 33, pp. 12028–12037,2017. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.7b02837

T. P. Allred, J.A. Weibel, and S.V. Garimella, A wettability metric for characterization of capillary flow on textured superhydrophilic surfaces, Langmuir 33, pp. 7847–7853, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.7b01522

T. Van Oevelen, J.A. Weibel, and S.V. Garimella, Predicting two-phase flow distribution and stability in systems with many parallel heated channels, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 107, pp. 557-571, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2016.11.050

Hao Tian, Woojin Ahn, Kerry Maize, Mengwei Si, Peide Ye, Muhammad Ashraful Alam, Ali Shakouri, and Peter Bermel, "Thermoreflectance imaging of electromigration evolution in asymmetric aluminum constrictions," Journal of Applied Physics 123, 035107 (2018).

Sakr, Enas, and Peter Bermel. "Angle-Selective Reflective Filters for Exclusion of Background Thermal Emission." Physical Review Applied 7.4 (2017): 044020.

Researchers