Submitted by Ricardo Cedraz Duque Moliterno (ricardo.moliterno@uefs.br) on 2016-04-07T00:24:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Posicionamento de Multiplos Sinks em RSSF com Priorizacao.pdf: 1718384 bytes, checksum: e4372e2075ce58446664e4be89f2676f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-07T00:24:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Posicionamento de Multiplos Sinks em RSSF com Priorizacao.pdf: 1718384 bytes, checksum: e4372e2075ce58446664e4be89f2676f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-15 / Wireless Sensor Networks can be used for environment monitoring, which may be in indoor scenarios such as in industries, warehouses and buildings, or in outdoor scenarios, just like forests, vulcanos and cities. Due to its energy supply limitations, researchers have been developing several approaches to reduce energy consumption in sensors and extend their lifetime. One of the ways to improve energy usage in a Wireless Sensor Network is by using multiple mobile sinks. In this work, a method to position multiple sinks in a relevance-based Wireless Sensor Network is proposed. After several simulations, it was observed that in applications where sensors have di erent importance levels, the network lifetime can be extended by using this approach. / Redes de Sensores Sem Fios podem ser utilizadas para o monitoramento de ambientes, sejam eles internos como ind ?strias, galp?es, constru??ess, ou externos como florestas, vulc?es, cidades, entre outros. Devido a sua limita ??o no fornecimento de energia, pesquisadores tem desenvolvido diversas abordagens para reduzir o consumo energ?tico nos sensores e prolongar seu tempo de vida. Uma das formas de melhorar o consumo de energia em uma Rede de Sensores Sem Fios e atrav?s do uso de m ?ltiplos sinks m oveis. Neste trabalho, e proposto um m ?todo para posicionamento de m ?ltiplos sinks em uma Rede de Sensores Sem Fios baseada em relev?ncias. Ap ?s diversas simula ??es, foi observado que em aplica ??es onde sensores possuem diferentes ni veis de import?ncia, o uso dessa abordagem aumenta o tempo de vida da rede.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Joint Program in Marine Geology and Geophysics (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / Determining timescales of the formation and preservation of carbonate alteration products in mantle peridotite is important in order to better understand the role of this potentially important sink in the global carbon cycle and also to evaluate the feasibility of using artificially-enhanced, in situ formation of carbonates in peridotite to mitigate the buildup of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions in the atmosphere. Timescales of natural carbonation of peridotite were investigated in the mantle layer of the Samail Ophiolite, Sultanate of Oman. Rates of ongoing, low-temperature CO₂ uptake were estimated through ¹⁴C and ²³⁰Th dating of carbonate alteration products. Approximately 1-3 x 10⁶ kg CO₂/yr is sequestered in Ca-rich surface travertines and approximately 10⁷ kg CO₂/yr is sequestered in Mg-rich carbonate veins. Rates of CO₂ removal were estimated through calculation of maximum erosion rates from cosmogenic 3He measurements in partially-serpentinized peridotite bedrock associated with carbonate alteration products. Maximum erosion rates for serpentinized peridotite bedrock are ~5 to 180 m/Myr (average: ~40 m/Myr), which removes at most 10⁵-10⁶ kg CO₂/yr through erosion of Mg-rich carbonate veins. / by Evelyn Martinique Mervine. / Ph.D.

With increased focus on miniaturization and high performance in electronics, thermal management is a very important area of research today. In multiple applications such as portable electronics, consumer electronics, military applications, automobile, power electronics, high performance computing, etc. innovative thermal management strategies are necessary. In this work, two novel approaches to dissipate redundant heat better- first by novel carbonaceous-nanoparticle additives to develop thermal interface materials with superior performance and the second by using advanced metal additive manufacturing techniques to design and analyze metal-lattice based heat sinks are presented. Thermal Interface Materials with multiple carbon-based nanoparticle fillers such as coal-derived Multi Layered Graphene (MLG), standard reduced Graphene Oxide (rGO), Multi-Walled Carbon Nano Tubes (MWCNTs), and Graphene Nano-Platelets (GNPs) in thermal paste were synthesized and seen to have superior heat dissipation properties. Also, graphene was synthesized from coal through an in-house, facile, scalable and cost-effective process. The enhancement in thermal conductance varies from ~70% in the coal-MLG to ~14% in MWCNTs-based TIMs. Noteworthy is ~3.5 times larger enhancement in thermal performance with the in-house coal-derived-MLG as compared to the commercially available g-MLG. At a 3% wt. fraction of coal-MLG, enhancement in thermal conductance was almost 120% higher compared to the base thermal grease. In the second part, metal lattice-based heat sinks are designed for additive manufacturing for use in passive cooling of high-flux thermal management. A parametric optimization based on the lattice geometry, thickness, and height subject to additive manufacturing constraints is conducted. Intricate metal lattices with low mass based on the Simple Cubic, Octet, and Voronoi structures were generated by implicit modelling in nTopology® and their thermal performance was analyzed through numerical analysis using commercial CFD packages. The Voronoi lattice performed best with a significant improvement in thermal performance (~18% reduction in junction temperature difference with respect to ambient) as compared to a standard baseline Longitudinal heat Sink (LHS), while reducing the mass of the heat sink by ~2.1 times. Such optimized metal lattice-based heat sinks can lead to significant downsizing, reduction in overall mass and cost in applications where thermal management is critical with a need for low mass. We believe that such novel scalable materials and processes suited for mass production could be critical in meeting the material, design and product development needs to tackle the thermal management challenges of the future. / Master of Science / With increase in demand of high power and performance in electronics, there is a concurrent increase in redundant heat that needs to be dissipated. With enhanced focus and push towards electric vehicles, defense, consumer electronics, datacenter and supercomputing applications, electronics cooling is a critical area of research today. There are two primary resistances to heat- as it is removed from electronics package to the surrounding atmosphere – due to the thin layer of a material called Thermal Interface Material (TIM) at the interface between the heat sink and the package, and the resistance offered by the heat sink itself. In this work, a two-pronged approach for better cooling in electronics is presented. Firstly, carbon-based nano-sized particles are used to synthesize novel TIMs that provide superior heat transport capabilities as compared to a standard baseline. In the second approach, complex metal-lattice based heat sinks are designed for manufacturing with advanced techniques such as metal 3D printing. Multiple carbon-based nano-particle additives such as Multi Layered Graphene synthesized from coal (MLG), standard commercially available reduced Graphene Oxide (rGO), Multi-Walled Carbon Nano Tubes (MWCNTs), and Graphene Nano-Platelets (GNPs) are dispersed in thermal paste and all of the resulting composites were found to remove heat better from electronics packages. The improvement in this ability varies from ~70% in the coal-MLG to ~14% in MWCNTs-based TIMs. Noteworthy is ~3.5 times larger enhancement in the heat transport ability with the use of in-house coal-derived-MLG as compared to the commercially available g-MLG. At an 3% wt. fraction of coal-MLG, there was a 1.2x increase in thermal performance as compared to the base thermal grease. Also, it is significant to mention that MLG was synthesized from coal through an in-house, facile scalable and cost-effective process. In the second part, metal lattice-based heat sinks designed for metal 3D printing for use in passive cooling of electronics was investigated. Multiple geometric parameters such as the lattice type, thickness, and height subject to additive manufacturing constraints were studied. Intricate metal lattices with low mass based on three structures- Simple Cubic, Octet, and Voronoi were generated by implicit modelling, and their thermal performance was predicted by computer based-simulations using commercial CFD packages. The Voronoi lattice performed best with a significant reduction (~18%) in junction temperature difference with the surrounding atmosphere- as compared to a standard baseline rectangular heat sink design, while simultaneously reducing the mass of the heat sink by ~2.1 times. Such optimized metal lattice-based heat sinks can lead to significant reduction in overall mass, size, and cost in weight sensitive applications. We believe that such novel scalable materials, designs, and processes suited for mass production could be critical in meeting the material, design and product development needs to tackle the thermal management challenges of the near future.

La conception d'un réseau de capteurs sans fil peut présenter de nombreux défis, tels que le passage à l'echèlle, la fiabilité, la longévité et la communication en temps réel. L'existence de plusieurs points de collecte peut augmenter la fiabilité du réseau et facilite le passage à l'echèlle. Toutefois, cette amélioration dépend de l’approche de routage, qui doit être adaptée pour atteindre les objectifs de performance souhaités.Dans cette optique, l’objectif de ce travail est de trouver des moyens pour optimiser la communication dans les réseaux de capteurs sans fil à multiples points de collecte en tenant compte des problèmes liés au passage à l'echèlle, à la durée de vie du réseau, à la fiabilité (livraison des paquets) et à la minimization de la latence. Nous étudions les point d'équilibre entre le délai et la consommation d'énergie en tant que paramètres clés pour la qualité et l'efficacité de la communication. Pour ce faire, nous proposons différents algorithmes de routage, couvrant les trois principaux schémas de communication (unicast, anycast et multicast).Les simulations effectuées montrent que nos approches sont capables d’optimiser la communication, notamment en termes de latence et de durée de vie du réseau. Des expériences sur la plateforme FIT IoT-Lab fournissent également des indications significatives sur les performances de notre solution multicast dans des conditions réelles. / The conception of a wireless sensor network may present numerous challenges, such as scalability, reliability, longevity and timeliness. The existence of multiple sinks may increase the network reliability and facilitates the scalability. However, this improvement is dependent on the routing approach, that must be tailored to help achieving the desired performance goals.From this perspective, the objective of this work is to find ways of optimizing the communication in multi-sink wireless sensor networks considering the problems related to the scalability, longevity (network lifetime), reliability (packet delivery) and timeliness (latency). We investigate the trades among data delivery time and energy consumption as key metrics for communication quality and efficiency. For that matter, we propose different routing algorithms, covering all three main communciations schemes (unicast, anycast and multicast).The executed simulations show that our approaches are capable of optimizing the communication, especially in terms of latency and network lifetime. Experiments on the FIT IoT-Lab platform also provide meaningful insights of the performance of our multicast solution in real environment condition.

La technologie des réseaux de capteurs sans fil (RCSF) est l’un des éléments constitutifs de l’Internet des objets (IoT). En raison de leurs caractéristiques de déploiement facile et de leur flexibilité, ils sont utilisés dans de nombreux domaines d’application. Les réseaux à faible consommation et à perte (LLN) sont un type spécial de WSN dans lequel les noeuds sont largement limités en ressources. Convergecast est l’un des modes de communication de base, dans lequel tout le trafic du réseau est destiné à une destination prédéfinie appelée collecteur. Tout en prenant en compte les domaines d’applications IoT, convergecast n’est pas le seul mode de communication sur le réseau. Le récepteur doit envoyer des commandes à certains capteurs pour effectuer des actions. Dans cette application, anycast est un autre mode de communication de base. Dans anycast, le trafic provenant du récepteur est destiné à tout membre d’un groupe de récepteurs potentiels du réseau.Les LLN sont formés de noeuds de capteurs statiques et changent rarement de position. En raison des contraintes de ressources strictes imposées au calcul, à l’énergie et à la mémoire des LLN, la plupart des protocoles de routage ne prennent en charge que les réseaux statiques. Cependant, la mobilité est devenue une exigence importante pour de nombreuses applications émergentes. Dans ces applications, certains noeuds sont libres de se déplacer et de s’organiser dans un réseau connecté. La topologie changerait continuellement en raison du mouvement des noeuds et de l’instabilité des liaisons radio. Il s’agit d’une tâche difficile pour la plupart des protocoles de routage des réseaux LLN afin de s’adapter rapidement au mouvement et de reconstruire la topologie en temps voulu. Le but de cette thèse est de proposer un support de mobilité efficace pour les protocoles de routage dans les réseaux LLN. Nous nous concentrons sur convergecast et anycast, qui sont les modes de communication les plus utilisés dans les réseaux LLN, dans les scénarios de réseau mobile. Nous proposons un mécanisme d’amélioration, nommé RL (RSSI and Level),pour prendre en charge les protocoles de routage dans les réseaux LLN convergecast en mobilité. Ce mécanisme aide le protocole de routage à prendre des décisions plus rapides pour la détection de la mobilité et la mise à jour des voisins du saut suivant,mais souffre d’une surcharge importante. Nous proposons une gestion dynamique des messages de contrôle pour améliorer les performances de RL et l’implémentons en plus du protocole de routage pour réseau à faible consommation (RPL) et nous l’avons nommé RRD (RSSI, Rank and Dynamic). Après une prise en compte de l’hystérésis de la zone de couverture de la plage de transmission des noeuds, nousavons optimisé RRD. Cette version améliorée s’appelle RRD +. Sur la base de RRD+, nous avons proposé MRRD + (Multiple, RSSI, Rank et Dynamic) pour prendre en charge plusieurs puits dans les réseaux LLN convergecast en mobilité. ADUP (Adaptive Downward / Upward Protocol) est une solution de routage prenant en charge simultanément convergecast et anycast dans les réseaux LLN. Nous avons évalué les performances de nos contributions à la fois en simulation avec le simulateur Cooja et en expérience (uniquement pour ADUP) sur des motosTelosB. Les résultats obtenus en simulation et en expérience confirment l’efficacité de nos protocoles de routage. / Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) technology is one of the building blocks ofthe Internet of Things (IoT). Due to their features of easy deployment and flexibility,they are used in many application domains. Low-Power and Lossy Networks(LLNs) are a special type of WSNs in which nodes are largely resources constrained.For LLNs, convergecast is one of the basic traffic modes, where all traffic in the networkis destined to a predefined destination called the sink. While considering theIoT application domains, convergecast is not the only traffic mode in the network.The sink needs to send commands to certain sensors to perform actions. In this application,anycast is another basic traffic mode. In anycast, the traffic from the sinkis destined to any member of a group of potential receivers in the network.Traditionally LLNs are formed by static sensor nodes and rarely change positions.Due to the strict resource constraints in computation, energy and memory ofLLNs, most routing protocols only support static network. However, mobility hasbecome an important requirement for many emerging applications. In these applications,certain nodes are free to move and organize themselves into a connectednetwork. The topology would continuously change due to the movement of nodesand radio links instability. This is a hard task for most routing protocols of LLNs toadapt rapidly to the movement and to reconstruct topology in a timely manner.The goal of this thesis is to propose an efficient mobility support for routingprotocols in LLNs. We focus on convergecast and anycast, which are the most usedtraffic modes in LLNs, in mobile network scenarios.We propose an enhancement mechanism, named RL (RSSI and Level), to supportrouting protocols in convergecast LLNs in mobility. This mechanism helps routingprotocol make faster decisions for detecting mobility and updating next-hop neighborsbut suffers from high overhead. We propose a dynamic control message managementto enhance the overhead performance of RL and implement it on top ofRouting Protocol for Low-power and Lossy network (RPL) and we named it RRD(RSSI, Rank and Dynamic). After taking into account hysteresis of the coveragezone of the transmission range of nodes, we optimized RRD. This enhanced versionis called RRD+. Based on RRD+, we proposed MRRD+ (Multiple, RSSI, Rankand Dynamic) to support multiple sinks in convergecast LLNs in mobility. ADUP(Adaptive Downward/Upward Protocol) is a routing solution that supports bothconvergecast and anycast in LLNs concurrently.We evaluated the performance of our contributions in both simulation usingCooja simulator and experiment (only for ADUP) on TelosB motes. The resultsobtained in both simulation and experiment confirm the efficiency of our routingprotocols.

<p>The aim of this study is to synthesize a material with high thermal conductivity and a low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), useful as a heat sink. Carbon nanofibres (CNF) are first coated with copper by an electroless plating technique and then sintered to a solid sample by either spark plasma sintering (SPS) or hot pressing (HP). The final product is a carbon nanofibre reinforced copper composite. Two different fibre structures are considered: platlet (PL) and herringbone (HB). The influence of the amount of CNF reinforcement (6-24 %wt), on the thermal conductivity and CTE is studied. CNF has an excellent thermal conductivity in the direction along the fibre while it is poor in the transverse direction. The CTE is close to zero in the temperature range of interest. The adhesion of Cu to the CNF surface is in general poor and thus improving the the wetting of the copper by surface modifications of the fibres are of interest such that thermal gaps in the microstructure can be avoided. The poor wetting results in CNF agglomerates, resulting in an inhomogeneous microstructure. In this report a combination of three different types of surface modifications has been tested: (1) electroless deposition of copper was used to improve Cu impregnation of CNF; (2) heat treatment of CNF to improve wetting; and (3) introduction of a Cr buffer layer to further enhance wetting. The obtained composite microstructures are characterized in terms of chemical composition, grain size and degree of agglomeration. In addition their densities are also reported. The thermal properties were evaluated in terms of thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity and CTE. Cr/Cu coated platelet fibres (6wt% of CNF reinforcement) sintered by SPS is the sample with the highest thermal conductivity, ~200 W/Km. The thermal conductivity is found to decrease with increasing content of CNFs.</p>

A stacked microchannel heat sink was developed to provide efficient cooling for microelectronics devices at a relatively low pressure drop while maintaining chip temperature uniformity. Microfabrication techniques were employed to fabricate the stacked microchannel structure, and experiments were conducted to study its thermal performance. A total thermal resistance of less than 0.1 K/W was demonstrated for both counter flow and parallel flow configurations. The effects of flow direction and interlayer flow rate ratio were investigated. It was found that for the low flow rate range the parallel flow arrangement results in a better overall thermal performance than the counter flow arrangement; whereas, for the large flow rate range, the total thermal resistances for both the counter flow and parallel flow configurations are indistinguishable. On the other hand, the counter flow arrangement provides better temperature uniformity for the entire flow rate range tested. The effects of localized heating on the overall thermal performance were examined by selectively applying electrical power to the heaters. Numerical simulations were conducted to study the conjugate heat transfer inside the stacked microchannels. Negative heat flux conditions were found near the outlets of the microchannels for the counter flow arrangement. This is particularly evident for small flow rates. The numerical results clearly explain why the total thermal resistance for counter flow arrangement is larger than that for the parallel flow at low flow rates. In addition, laminar flow inside the microchannels were characterized using Micro-PIV techniques. Microchannels of different width were fabricated in silicon, the smallest channel measuring 34 mm in width. Measurements were conducted at various channel depths. Measured velocity profiles at these depths were found to be in reasonable agreement with laminar flow theory. Micro-PIV measurement found that the maximum velocity is shifted significantly towards the top of the microchannels due to the sidewall slope, a common issue faced with DRIE etching. Numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the effects of the sidewall slope on the flow and heat transfer. The results show that the effects of large sidewall slope on heat transfer are significant; whereas, the effects on pressure drop are not as pronounced.

The work reported in this thesis is an attempt to enhance heat transfer in electronic devices with the use of impinging air jets on pin-finned heat sinks. The cooling per-formance of electronic devices has attracted increased attention owing to the demand of compact size, higher power densities and demands on system performance and re-liability. Although the technology of cooling has greatly advanced, the main cause of malfunction of the electronic devices remains overheating. The problem arises due to restriction of space and also due to high heat dissipation rates, which have increased from a fraction of a W/cm2to 100s of W /cm2. Although several researchers have at-tempted to address this at the design stage, unfortunately the speed of invention of cooling mechanism has not kept pace with the ever-increasing requirement of heat re- moval from electronic chips. As a result, efficient cooling of electronic chip remains a challenge in thermal engineering. Heat transfer can be enhanced by several ways like air cooling, liquid cooling, phase change cooling etc. However, in certain applications due to limitations on cost and weight, eg. air borne application, air cooling is imperative. The heat transfer can be increased by two ways. First, increasing the heat transfer coefficient (forced convec- tion), and second, increasing the surface area of heat transfer (finned heat sinks). From previous literature it was established that for a given volumetric air flow rate, jet im-pingement is the best option for enhancing heat transfer coefficient and for a given volume of heat sink material pin-finned heat sinks are the best option because of their high surface area to volume ratio. There are certain applications where very high jet velocities cannot be used because of limitations of noise and presence of delicate components. This process can further be improved by pulsating the jet. A steady jet often stabilizes the boundary layer on the surface to be cooled. Enhancement in the convective heat transfer can be achieved if the boundary layer is broken. Disruptions in the boundary layer can be caused by pulsating the impinging jet, i.e., making the jet unsteady. Besides, the pulsations lead to chaotic mixing, i.e., the fluid particles no more follow well defined streamlines but move unpredictably through the stagnation region. Thus the flow mimics turbulence at low Reynolds number. The pulsation should be done in such a way that the boundary layer can be disturbed periodically and yet adequate coolant is made available. So, that there is not much variation in temperature during one pulse cycle. From previous literature it was found that square waveform is most effective in enhancing heat transfer. In the present study the combined effect of pin-finned heat sink and impinging slot jet, both steady and unsteady, has been investigated for both laminar and turbulent flows. The effect of fin height and height of impingement has been studied. The jets have been pulsated in square waveform to study the effect of frequency and duty cycle. This thesis attempts to increase our understanding of the slot jet impingement on pin-finned heat sinks through numerical investigations. A systematic study is carried out using the finite-volume code FLUENT (Version 6.2) to solve the thermal and flow fields. The standard k-ε model for turbulence equations and two layer zonal model in wall function are used in the problem Pressure-velocity coupling is handled using the SIMPLE algorithm with a staggered grid. The parameters that affect the heat transfer coefficient are: height of the fins, total height of impingement, jet exit Reynolds number, frequency of the jet and duty cycle (percentage time the jet is flowing during one complete cycle of the pulse). From the studies carried out it was found that: a) beyond a certain height of the fin the rate of enhancement of heat transfer becomes very low with further increase in height, b) the heat transfer enhancement is much more sensitive to any changes at low Reynolds number than compared to high Reynolds number, c) for a given total height of impingement the use of fins and pulsated jet, increases the effective heat transfer coefficient by almost 200% for the same average Reynolds number, d) for all the cases it was observed that the optimum frequency of impingement is around 50 − 100 Hz and optimum duty cycle around 25-33.33%, e) in the case of turbulent jets the enhancement in heat transfer due to pulsations is very less compared to the enhancement in case of laminar jets.

The principal goal of this thesis is to develop a systematic method for the design of composite heat sinks (CHSs) that serve as passive and transient cooling devices for microelectronics. This is accomplished by posing the CHS design problem as a topology optimization problem wherein a phase-change material and a high-conductivity material are to be optimally distributed. Two different types of formulations are proposed. The first one aims to maximize the time of operation before a tolerable temperature is reached at the interface between a heat source and the CHS. The second one aims to minimize the maximum temperature across the heating interface for a given time of operation. The two materials are interpolated in topology optimization using the usual mixture law with penalty. The phase-change is modeled using the apparent heat capacity method in which the specific heat is taken as a nonlinear function of the temperature so that the latent heat absorption is accounted for at the melting point. The ensuing new transient topology optimization problem involving an interpolated material property that depends on the state variable is solved using continuous optimization algorithm. The validity of the phase-change modeling is verified with a one dimensional model as well as experimentation. Analytical sensitivity analysis is derived and verified with the finite difference derivatives. Several examples are solved to illustrate the intricacies of the problem and the effectiveness and the limitations of the proposed design method. Prototypes of an intuitively conceived CHS and optimized one are made. An experimental setup is devised to test the two prototypes. Based on the insight gained from the experiments, an improved conduction model is studied to also incorporate convective heat transfer also into the model.

The aim of this study is to synthesize a material with high thermal conductivity and a low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), useful as a heat sink. Carbon nanofibres (CNF) are first coated with copper by an electroless plating technique and then sintered to a solid sample by either spark plasma sintering (SPS) or hot pressing (HP). The final product is a carbon nanofibre reinforced copper composite. Two different fibre structures are considered: platlet (PL) and herringbone (HB). The influence of the amount of CNF reinforcement (6-24 %wt), on the thermal conductivity and CTE is studied. CNF has an excellent thermal conductivity in the direction along the fibre while it is poor in the transverse direction. The CTE is close to zero in the temperature range of interest. The adhesion of Cu to the CNF surface is in general poor and thus improving the the wetting of the copper by surface modifications of the fibres are of interest such that thermal gaps in the microstructure can be avoided. The poor wetting results in CNF agglomerates, resulting in an inhomogeneous microstructure. In this report a combination of three different types of surface modifications has been tested: (1) electroless deposition of copper was used to improve Cu impregnation of CNF; (2) heat treatment of CNF to improve wetting; and (3) introduction of a Cr buffer layer to further enhance wetting. The obtained composite microstructures are characterized in terms of chemical composition, grain size and degree of agglomeration. In addition their densities are also reported. The thermal properties were evaluated in terms of thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity and CTE. Cr/Cu coated platelet fibres (6wt% of CNF reinforcement) sintered by SPS is the sample with the highest thermal conductivity, ~200 W/Km. The thermal conductivity is found to decrease with increasing content of CNFs.