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

由于封装在狭小空间中的设备数量不断增加，电子产品的持续进步产生了越来越具有挑战性的散热问题。这导致了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散热，并将有源设备保持在其工作温度范围内。这项研究计划将开发具有增强冷却能力的创新介质喷雾冷却，以解决许多尖端技术中的高热流密度热挑战，包括超级计算机、电力转换/逆变和分配系统、医疗成像设备、电动汽车、地面/天基激光和雷达以及地球科学卫星等。在理论分析和数值模拟的支持下，将进行广泛而系统的实验研究，以研究冷却性能与喷雾动力学、表面特性和冷却剂性质的关系。通过优化喷雾动力学和将纳米技术整合到喷雾冷却中，冷却能力将得到提高。纳米加工将用于在冷却表面上制造纳米级的织构，以增强喷雾与表面的相互作用。纳米粒子将与介电冷却剂混合，以开发具有增强热传输性能的纳米流体冷却剂。通过实验对流体力学和传热学有了基本的了解，这将有助于开发一个通用的分析模型来预测制冷量，这对介质喷雾冷却的应用非常有用。这项研究将使加拿大的许多高科技行业受益，如微电子、电力电子、航空和国防工业。通过与业界的积极合作，研究中取得的技术进步将转化为应用开发。该计划将培训一批在热控和喷雾冷却方面具有专业知识的工程师。

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.