SBIR Phase II: Rapid and Accurate Multi-Variable Optimization Software for Arrays of Heat Sinks

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是改善电子冷却系统。 数据和电信中心每年消耗200 TWhr的能源，产生约3000万吨二氧化碳，其中近一半可归因于冷却。电子冷却市场超过100亿美元/年，复合年增长率为8%。这里开发的技术将大大减少这些数字，并对环境和财务产生重大影响，同时改进硬件和软件。 这将使许多领域受益，包括下一代5G无线通信、高性能计算、物联网、加密货币和国家安全。SBIR第二阶段项目旨在开发两种互补技术，以实现电子设备的高效热管理。它将增加用于冷却的结构刚性蒸汽室的顺应性，例如，多核处理器，其中蒸汽室将单个散热器热耦合到不同的处理器核。该项目将开发顺应性蒸汽室的大规模生产工艺，该蒸汽室容纳与顺应性隔膜集成的新型毛细管芯。其次，该项目将开发一个用于电子硬件的散热器优化平台，将硬件在环（HIL）与多变量优化（MVO）算法相结合。因此，它将是第一个测量流场的系统，因为散热器在HIL知情优化过程中实时重新配置。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is to improve electronics cooling systems. Data and telecommunications centers consume 200 TWhr/yr of energy and produce about 30 million tons of carbon dioxide, with nearly half of these numbers attributable to cooling. The electronics cooling market exceeds $10 billion/year with an 8% compound annual growth rate. The technologies developed here will significantly reduce those numbers, with significant environmental and financial impact, with improved hardware and software. This will benefit many sectors including next-generation 5G-wireless communications, high-performance computing, the Internet of Things, cryptocurrency, and national security. This SBIR Phase II project proposes to develop two complementary technologies for efficient thermal management of electronics. It will add compliancy to the structurally-rigid vapor chambers used for cooling, e.g., multicore processors where vapor chambers thermally couple a single heat sink to the different processor cores. This project will develop a mass production process of compliant vapor chambers accommodating novel forms of capillary wicks integrated with compliant diaphragms. Secondly, the project will develop a heat sink optimization platform for electronics hardware, coupling hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) with a multi-variable optimization (MVO) algorithm. Consequently, it will be the first system to measure the flow field as the heat sinks are reconfigured in real-time during the HIL-informed optimization.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.