Enhanced and Predictable Dielectric Spray Cooling for High-heat-flux Electronic Devices

电子产品的持续发展产生了越来越具有挑战性的热问题，这是由于越来越多的设备封装在狭小的空间中。这导致对有效冷却解决方案的需求不断增加，这些解决方案能够通过小面积耗散大量热量，并将有源器件保持在其工作温度范围内。该研究计划将开发具有增强冷却能力的创新介电喷雾冷却，以解决许多尖端技术中的高热通量热挑战，包括超级计算机，功率转换/逆变和配电系统，医疗成像设备，电动汽车，地面/天基激光器和雷达，以及地球科学卫星，仅举几例。 通过理论分析和数值模拟，对冷却性能与喷雾动力学、表面特性和冷却剂特性之间的关系进行了广泛而系统的实验研究。冷却能力将通过优化喷雾动力学和将纳米技术集成到喷雾冷却中来提高。纳米纤维将用于在冷却表面上制造纳米级纹理，以增强喷雾-表面相互作用。纳米颗粒将与介电冷却剂混合，以开发具有增强的热传输性能的纳米流体冷却剂。 通过实验获得的流体动力学和传热的基本理解将使冷却能力预测的一般分析模型的发展，这是非常有用的介质喷雾冷却的应用。 这项研究将使加拿大的许多高科技产业受益，如微电子、电力电子、航空和国防工业。研究中取得的技术进步将通过与工业界的积极合作过渡到应用开发。该计划将培养一批具有热控制和喷雾冷却专业知识的工程师。

The continued advance in electronics has generated increasingly challenging thermal issues due to the rising number of devices packaged in tightened space. This has lead to increasing demand for effective cooling solutions capable of dissipating enormous amounts of heat through small areas and keeping active devices within their operating temperature ranges. This research program will develop innovative dielectric spray cooling with enhanced cooling capacity to solve the high-heat-flux thermal challenges in many cutting-edge technologies, including supercomputers, power conversion/inversion and distribution systems, medical imaging equipment, electric vehicles, ground/space-based lasers and radars, and earth science satellites, to name a few. Extensive and systematic experimental studies supported by theoretical analysis and numerical simulation will be conducted to investigate the relationships of cooling performance with spray dynamics, surface characteristics and coolant properties. Cooling capacity will be enhanced by optimizing spray dynamics and integrating nanotechnologies into spray cooling. Nanofabrication will be applied to fabricate nanometer-scale textures on cooling surfaces to enhance spray-surface interactions. Nanoparticles will be mixed with dielectric coolants to develop nanofluid coolants with enhanced heat transport properties. Fundamental understanding of fluid dynamics and heat transfer obtained through the experiments will enable the development of a general analytical model for cooling capacity prediction, which is highly useful for the application of dielectric spray cooling. This research will benefit many high-technology industries in Canada such as microelectronics, power electronics, aviation and defence industries. Technology advances achieved in the research will be transitioned to application development through active collaborations with industry. This program will train a group of engineers with expertise in thermal control and spray cooling.