In this analysis, the efficacy of cavitation jets for heat transfer enhancement was demonstrated. The cavitation jet was formed from a cluster of cavitation bubbles that are the result of a submerged piezoelectric diaphragms oscillating about a given velocity threshold Two different heaters operating in two different flow environments were examined. For each heater in each environment, the cavitation jet significantly increased the heat transfer

A numerical study of axisymmetric synthetic jet flow was conducted. The synthetic jet cavity was modeled as a rigid chamber with a piston-like moving diaphragm at its bottom. The Shear-Stress-Transportation (SST) k-omega and #61559; turbulence model was employed to simulate turbulence. Based on time-mean analysis, three flow regimes were identified for typical synthetic jet flows. Typical vortex dynamics and flow patterns were analyzed. The effects of changes of working frequency, cavity geometry (aspect ratio), and nozzle geometry were investigated. A control-volume model of synthetic jet cavity was proposed based on the numerical study, which consists of two first-order ODEs. With appropriately selected parameters, the model was able to predict the cavity pressure and average velocity through the nozzle within 10% errors compared with full simulations. The cavity model can be used to generate the boundary conditions for synthetic jet simulations and the agreement to the full simulation results was good. The saving of computational cost is significant. It was found that synthetic jet impingement heat transfer outperforms conventional jet impingement heat transfer with equivalent average jet velocity. Normal jet impingement heat transfer using synthetic jet was investigated numerically too. The effects of changes of design and working parameters on local heat transfer on the impingement plate were investigated. Key flow structures and heat transfer characteristics were identified. At last, a parametric study of an active heat sink employing synthetic jet technology was conducted using Large Eddy Simulation (LES). Optimal design parameters were recommended base on the parametric study.

The goal of this research is to investigate how to deposit SiC material from methyltrichlorosilane (MTS) and H2 using the LCVD technique. Two geometries were targeted, fiber and line. In order to eliminate the volcano effect for LCVD-SiC deposition, a thermodynamics model was developed to check the feasibility and determine the deposition temperature ranges that will not cause the volcano effect, theoretically. With the aid of the thermodynamic calculations and further experimental explorations, the processing conditions for SiC fibers and lines without volcano effect were determined. The experimental relationships between the volcano effect and the deposition temperatures were achieved. As for the SiC lines, the deposition conditions for eliminating volcano effect were determined with the help of surface response experiment and the experience of SiC fiber depositions. The LCVD process of SiC deposition was characterized by performing a kinetic study of SiC deposition. The deposits were characterized by the means of polishing, chemical etching, and SEM technique. A coupled thermal and structural model was created to calculate the thermal residual stress present in the deposits during the deposition process and during the cooling process. Laser heating of LCVD system was studied by developing another model. The transient temperature distribution within the fiber and substrate was obtained. The theoretical relationships between the laser power and the fiber heights for maintaining constant deposition temperatures were achieved.

An experimental and numerical investigation was conducted to study boiling and condensation - the two most important phenomena occurring in a dual-chamber thermosyphon. Boiling experiments were carried out using water at sub-atmospheric pressures of 9.7, 15 and 21 kPa with a three-dimensional porous boiling enhancement structure integrated in the evaporator. Sub-atmospheric pressure boiling achieved heat fluxes in excess of 100 W/cm2 with negligible incipience superheat, for wall temperatures below 85 oC. Reduced pressures resulted in reduction of heat transfer coefficient with decrease in saturation pressure. The boiling enhancement structure showed considerable heat transfer enhancement compared to boiling from plain surface. Increased height of the structure decreased the heat transfer coefficient and suggested the existence of an optimum structure height for a particular saturation pressure. A parametric study showed that a reduction in liquid level of water increased the CHF for boiling with plain surfaces. For boiling with enhanced structures, the liquid level for optimum heat transfer increased with increasing height of the enhanced structure. A numerical model was developed to study condensation of water in horizontal rectangular microchannels of hydraulic diameters 150-375 µm. The model incorporated surface tension, axial pressure gradient, liquid film curvature, liquid film thermal resistance, gravity and interfacial shear stress, and implemented successive solution of mass, momentum and energy balance equations for both liquid and vapor phases. Rectangular microchannels achieved significantly higher heat transfer coefficient compared to a circular channel of similar hydraulic diameter. Increasing the inlet mass flow rate resulted in a higher heat transfer coefficient. Increasing the inlet temperature difference between wall and vapor led to a thicker film and a gradually decreasing heat transfer coefficient. Increasing the channel dimensions led to higher heat transfer coefficient, with a reduction in the vapor pressure drop along the axial direction of the channel. The unique contributions of the study are: extending the knowledge base and contributing unique results on the thermal performance of thermosyphons, and development of a analytical model of condensation in rectangular microchannels, which identified the system parameters that affects the flow and thermal performance during condensation.

The thermal interface layer can be a limiting element in the cooling of microelectronic devices. Conventional solders, pastes and pads are no longer sufficient to handle the high heat fluxes associated with connecting the device to the sink. Carbon nanotubes(CNTs) have been proposed as a possible thermal interface material(TI M), due to their thermal and mechanical properties, and prior research has established the effectiveness of vertically arranged CNT arrays to match the capabilities of the best conventional TIMs. However, to reach commercial applicability, many improvements need to be made in terms of improving thermal and mechanical properties as well as cost and manufacturing ease of the layer. Prior work demonstrated a simple method to transfer and bond CNT arrays through the use of a nanometer thin layer of gold as a bonding layer. This study sought to improve on that technique. By controlling the rate of deposition, the bonding temperature was reduced. By using different metals and thinner layers, the potential cost of the technique was reduced. Through the creation of a patterned array, a phase change element was able to be incorporated into the technique. The various interfaces created are characterized mechanically and thermally.

Thermal management is a key challenge to improving the performance of microelectronic devices. For many high performance applications, the thermal resistance between chip and heat sink may account for half of the total thermal budget. Chip-level heat dissipation is therefore a critical bottleneck to the development of advanced microelectronics with high junction temperatures. Recently aligned carbon nanotube arrays have been developed as possible next generation thermal interface materials to overcome this thermal limitation, however the thermal physics of these nanoscale interfaces remains unclear. In this thesis, the thermal interface resistance between a carbon nanotube and adjoining carbon, silicon, or copper substrate is investigated through non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation. Phonon transmission is calculated using a simplified form of the diffuse mismatch model with direct simulation of the phonon density of states. The results of theory and simulation are reported as a function of temperature in order to estimate the importance of anharmonicity and inelastic scattering. The results of this work provide a better understand of the mechanisms of thermal transport to assist future CNT TIM research and development.

Near-field thermal radiation which can exceed blackbody radiation by several orders of magnitude has potential applications in energy conversion devices, nanofabrication, and near-field imaging. The present dissertation provides a comprehensive and thorough investigation of near-field heat transfer between parallel plates at nanometer distances. The first part of this dissertation focuses on the fundamentals of nanoscale thermal radiation through a systematic study on the near-field heat transfer between doped Si plates. In order to calculate the near-field heat transfer, it is important to accurately predict the dielectric function of doped Si. The dielectric function of doped Si which is described by the Drude model is a function of carrier concentration and mobility. Hence, accurate ionization and carrier mobility models for both p- and n-type Si are identified after a careful review of the available literature. The radiative properties calculated using the improved dielectric function agrees to a good extent with measurements performed using a FTIR. The near-field heat transfer between doped Si plates at varying doping levels is then calculated using the improved dielectric functions. Several important and characteristic features of near-field radiation are revealed in the analysis. An interesting issue regarding the maximum achievable nanoscale thermal radiation arises out of the study on near-field heat transfer in doped Si. The second part of this dissertation investigates the maximum achievable near-field thermal radiation between two plates at finite vacuum gaps. Initially, both the emitter and the receiver are assumed to have identical frequency-independent dielectric functions and a cut off in the order of the lattice spacing is set on the upper limit of the wavevector. The energy transfer is maximum when the real part of dielectric function is around -1 due to surface waves. On the other hand, there is a strong relationship between the imaginary part of the dielectric function and the vacuum gap. While the study using frequency independent dielectric function is not realistic, it lays down the guidelines for the parametric optimization of dielectric functions of real materials for achieving maximum near-field heat transfer. A parametric study of the different adjustable parameters in the Drude and Loretz model is performed in order to analyze their effect on the near-field heat transfer. It is seen that the optimized Drude model always results in greater near-field heat transfer compared to the Lorentz model and the maximum achievable near-field heat transfer is nearly 1 order greater than that between real materials. In the third part of this dissertation, the unusual penetration depth and the energy streamlines in near-field thermal radiation are studied. It is seen that unlike far-field radiation, the penetration depth in near-field heat transfer is dependent on the vacuum gap. This unusual feature results in a 10 nm thick SiC film behaving as completely opaque when the vacuum gap is around 10 nm. The energy streamlines inside the emitter, receiver, and the vacuum gap are calculated using fluctuation electrodynamics and errors generated due to thin film optics are pointed out. It is seen that the lateral shift of the streamlines inside the emitter can be greater than that in the vacuum gap for SiC. However, for doped Si, the lateral shift is comparable in the different media. While the study on the penetration depth determines the thickness of the emitter, the streamlines determine the lateral dimension.

Sustaining high performance demand has led to the development of manycore processors. These manycore processors have thermal properties which are different from conventional processors. In order to understand the thermal characteristics of such manycore processors, we have developed a modeling environment with a rich set of features which can be used to used to model different scenarios in manycore processors. Using this modeling framework, we have developed a thermal management policy called 'Weight based management policy'. We have also developed a GUI based modeling tool which can be integrated into the computer architecture curriculum so as to enable students to understand the importance of thermal limitations right during the design phase.

Open cell metal foams are a type of engineered material can be characterized by high porosity, high strength to weight ratio, tortuous flow paths and high surface area to volume ratio. It is the structure that gives the metal foams the characteristics that make them well suited for many application including heat exchangers. In this work, the structure of open celled metal foams is quantitatively characterized using an image analysis based method in order to predict the evaporative heat transfer of the metal foam using the fluid permeability. Several image processing algorithms were developed to quantitatively characterize the porosity, surface area per unit volume and the tortousity of metal foams from digital images of the cross sections of the material, and an expression was used to calculate the fluid permeability. An algorithm was developed to partion the pore space in the digital images so that individual cells within the structure could also be quantitatively characterized. Tools were also developed to predict the structure of open celled foam processed using the sacrificial template method by digitally constructing microstructures based the particle packing of the sacrificial templating material.

This thesis seeks to examine the effective convective heat exchange of sand as a heat exchange medium. The goal of this exploratory research is to quantify the heat transfer coefficient of sand in a proposed Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system which intends to complement solar thermal power generation. Standard concentrator solar thermal power plants typically employ a heat transfer fluid (HTF) that is heated in the collector field then routed to the power generators or TES unit. A fairly clear option for a TES system would be to utilize the existing HTF as the working storage medium. However, the use of conventional HTF systems may be too expensive. These fluids are quite costly as the quantity needed for storage is high and for some fluids their associated high vapor pressures require expensive highly reinforced containment vessels. The proposed storage system seeks to use sand as the storage medium; greatly reducing the expenses involved for both medium and storage costs. Most prior TES designs using sand or other solids employed them in a fixed bed for thermal exchange. The proposed TES system will instead move the sand to drive a counter flow thermal exchange. This counter flow design allows for a much closer temperature of approach when compared to a fixed bed. As cost and performance are the primary goals to tackle of the proposed system, the evaluation of the sandâ s thermal exchange effectiveness in a flowing state is necessary. Experiments will be conducted to measure the effective heat transfer coefficient between the sand and representative solid surfaces used as the heat transfer conduits. Additional experiments that will be looked at are wear caused by the sand as a consideration for long term design viability as well as angle of repose of the sand and its effect on scoop design for improved materials handling. Key investigational aspects of these experiments involve the sand grain size as well as shape of the heat exchanger surfaces. The thesis will evaluate the resulting convective heat transfer coefficient of the sand as related to these features. The data will then be compared and verified with available literature of previously studied characteristic thermal properties of sand. The measured and confirmed data will then be used to further aid in a design model for the proposed TES system.