Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Open Access Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MS)

Administrative Home Department

Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics

Advisor 1

Sajjad Bigham

Committee Member 1

Kazuya Tajiri

Committee Member 2

Song-Lin Yang

Abstract

Phase-change heat transfer through pool boiling process offers a promising thermal management solution in applications wherein conventional air or single-phase liquid-based cooling methods prove inefficient such as for high-power electronics. Pool boiling process, which utilizes the latent heat of evaporation, provides a robust and efficient way to efficiently dissipate the excessive heat generated in a small footprint area in particular as seen in CPUs (Central Processing Units), GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes), radars, and other demanding computing, sensing and surveillance electronics. Although boiling process has been studied for over five decades, it has not been yet adapted for widespread deployment. This is mainly due to the lack of a reliable high-performance boiling surface with exceptional heat dissipation potential. Boiling heat transfer is fundamentally limited by CHF (Critical Heat Flux), which is the maximum heat flux a given boiling surface can dissipate. At this point, a vapor layer covers the boiling surface causing surface temperature overshoot with a potential catastrophic failure. Deploying various active and passive methods, researchers have proposed different strategies to push further the CHF values, and thus widen the safe operating limits of a system. In this study, we propose a unique, passive surface topology to enhance heat transfer by altering three distinctive surface properties: augmented roughness, out-of-plane capillary wicking and separate liquid vapor pathways.

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