Applications
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Electronics Cooling
Breakthroughs in many of today’s cutting-edge technologies are becoming increasingly dependent upon the ability to safely dissipate enormous amounts of heat from very small areas. This ‘high-flux’ heat dissipation is encountered in many electronics applications, including computers, computer data centers, hybrid vehicle power electronics, and avionics. details
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Ultra High Flux Cooling
Reliable performance of many modern cutting-edge applications is highly dependent upon the ability to dissipate enormous amounts of heat per unit area. They include fusion reactors, particle accelerators, and directed energy laser and microwave systems. details
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Electronics Refrigeration Cooling
While modern electronic and power devices have witnessed a significant increase in heat dissipation rate, the maximum allowable temperature in most applications has remained fairly constant or increased by a modest amount. In any liquid cooling application, device temperature increases with increasing heat dissipation rate for a fixed coolant temperature. details
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Hybrid Vehicle Electronics Cooling
The automobile industry is presently witnessing unprecedented interest in development of new electric propulsion systems in an effort to transition from conventional engines to economical combustion engine hybrid vehicles in the near term and to fuel cell vehicles in the long term. Evidence of this transition can be found in the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership programs spearheaded by the US Department of Energy. details
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Hydrogen Storage
Recently, hydrogen has attracted significant attention as a promising and sustainable energy solution for mobile systems. Aside from being the most abundant element on Earth, hydrogen is lightweight, has high energy content per unit mass, and produces water as a result of oxidation. This means that effective use of hydrogen can ensure a virtually unlimited and environmentally safe source of energy. details
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Avionics Cooling
Cooling of avionics onboard modern military and commercial aircraft is achieved inside a rectangular avionics enclosure that serves the multiple purposes of mechanical mounting of circuit boards and electrical interconnect, in addition to the cooling. An avionics enclosure contains several closely packed modules that contain the circuit boards. In the majority of today’s avionics, each module houses two circuit boards mounted back-to-back against a thermally conducting substrate. details
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Turbine Engine Cooling
Supersonic gas turbine engines pose unique thermal management challenges not encountered in subsonic engines. In both cases, compressor bleed air is used to cool various downstream engine components such as turbine blades and afterburner walls. In subsonic engines, compressor bleed air is cool enough to be used directly for downstream cooling purposes. details
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Spacecraft Thermal Control
With projected increases in scope, complexity and duration of future space missions, both power and heat dissipation demands are expected to rise. Success of these missions will depend largely on the ability to reduce size and weight of all key thermal management sub-systems. One means to achieving this goal is to reduce surface area of heat exchange surfaces by replacing single-phase systems with two-phase counterparts, which can yield orders of magnitude enhancement in heat transfer coefficients. details
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Rocket Engine Cooling
The walls of thrust chambers in modern liquid rocket engines encounter very high pressures and temperatures. In hydrogen/oxygen liquid rocket engines, the walls are cooled by hydrogen flowing at high flow rate through rectangular micro-channels. Wall cooling effectiveness is of paramount importance to the thrust chamber’s life, which can be nearly doubled if wall temperature is reduced by 50-100°C. details
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Quenching of Metal Alloys
One of the most important applications of spray cooling is quenching of aluminum alloy and steel parts. Quenching is the most critical stage of heat-treating, which is intended to control the alloy’s microstructure in pursuit of superior mechanical properties. Heat-treating is comprised of three stages: solution heat-treating, quenching, and age-hardening. details