The METTL team conducts research in thermal management by exploring advanced cooling approaches.
The main research topics including:
Thermal management of automotive electronics
State-of-the-art high torque density motor systems for transportation applications require a separate motor, drive, and externally attached heat rejection units, which results in both a large size and a heavy weight of the overall system. This is a barrier to their use in large power and torque density future transportation applications, such as electrified trucks, buses, and aircraft. Advanced cooling approaches are proposed into the motor and drive electronics. Ambient heat rejection is integrated into a single unit to dramatically reduce system size and weight. Our innovations will reduce greenhouse gas emissions due to more electrification, and improve the energy efficiency of transportation systems utilizing electric motors.
Thermal management in heterogeneous integration of microsystems
With the recent end of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, which has guided research on thermal packaging of microprocessors for nearly a quarter-century, significantly different challenges are on the horizon for compact, high-performance microsystems. Heterogeneous integration through chip stacking can bring numerous system functionalities such as logic, memory, and radio frequency in highly compact form factor systems. However, the realization of these technologies will require handling significant thermal management challenges. METTL researchers are pursuing multiple avenues to handle these. Computational and experimental research on microfluidic cooling, and sub-mm vapor chambers to address the high heat fluxes, and localized hot spots in these applications are in progress.
Thermal management in smart cities
Over 50% of the world population resides in urban areas, and this number is expected to approach 65% within 25 years. Although cities only occupy a mere 2% of the Earth’s surface area, they are responsible for nearly 70% of the global energy consumption, which is projected to increase 1.6 times from 2010 to 2040. This growth will be the result of increasing urban area populations, and infrastructure facilities such as high-rise residential, commercial buildings, and data centers. Much of the energy used in urban areas is ultimately converted to anthropogenic waste heat released to the urban canopy, contributing to the growth of urban heat islands. METTL researchers are investigating the characterization of urban thermal environments, and exploring mitigation approaches.
Thermal management of data centers
Data centers currently consume nearly 3% of the generated electricity nationally, of which 20%-50% is towards thermal management. With continuing growth of these facilities, it is critical to ensure their energy efficient thermal management. Air cooling at the data center facility level continues to be widely used, even as high performance chip cooling approaches emerge, and are integrated. Characterizing and managing air flows in data centers to ensure adequate cooling and energy efficiency, in the presence of varying workloads is a key challenge. High performance data centers of the future will see emerging chip level thermal management technologies including microfluidic cooling deployed in servers and cabinets. METTL is focusing on simulations and experiments on energy efficient thermal management of data centers in our 1200 sq. ft. dedicated Data Center Laboratory.
Current Projects
1. High power density compact drive integrated motor for electric transportation
2. Characterization and Control of Urban Thermal Environments
3. Thermal Management of Outdoor Digital Displays
4. Device- and System-Level Thermal Packaging for Electric-Drive Technologies
Completed Projects
Thermal Energy reduction in server cooling system
Xuefei HanThermal Evaluation of Three-dimensional (3D) Stacking for Future High-Performance Microsystems
Zhimin Wan
Sponsors: Cisco Systems, Inc and Sandia National LaboratoriesCoupled Thermal and Electrochemical Model of Lithium-Ion Batteries
Daniel GaddesInvestigation of Air Flow Through Perforated Floor Tiles
Yunji Gu
Rotary regenerative Heat Exchanger for Air-Cooled Data Centers
Seungho Mok
Pool and Flow Boiling of Novel Heat Transfer Fluids from Nanostructured Surfaces
Aravind Sathyanarayana
Sponsor: Office of Naval Research (ONR)
Joule Heating in Planar and 3-D Interconnect Architectures under Pulsed and Non-Periodic Transient Currents
Banafsheh Barabadi
Hybrid Heat Sink Technology
Ashish Sinha
Investigation of airflow through perforated tile in a raised floor data center, Cold aisle containment studies with fan tiles
Dr. Vaibhav K. Arghode
Two-Phase Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow in Pin Fin Enhanced Micro-Gaps
Steven Isaacs
Sponsor: Integrated 3D Systems Group at Georgia Tech (Prof. Muhannad S. Bakir)
Transient Reduced-Order Convective Heat Transfer Modeling For A Data Center
Rajat Ghosh
Sponsor: IBM
Hybrid Solid-State/ Fluidic Solution for Hot Spot Removal
Vivek Sahu
Sponsor: MARCO/DARPA/Interconnect Focus Center
Thermal Implications of the Next Generation Interconnects
Dr. Yoon Jo Kim
Sponsor: MARCO/DARPA/Interconnect Focus Center
Visualization of Pool Boiling From Stacked Enhancement Structure
Camil-Daniel Ghiu
Sponsor: DARPA
Modeling of High Power Density Data Centers
Graham Nelson
Sponsor: CEETHERM
Reduced-Order Modeling of Thermal Systems
Emad Samadiani
Sponsor: CEETHERM/Office of Naval Research (ONR)
Design of Thermal Management Systems for Electronics Used in Oil Well Drilling
Ashish Sinha
Sponsor: Halliburton Energy Services
Forced Convection in Microchannels Enhanced with Nanostructures
Carter Dietz
Sponsor: CEETHERM
Cryogenic Cooling of Electronics
Shivesh Suman
Sponsor: MARCO/DARPA/Interconnect Focus Center
Nanoscale Thermal Characterization of Metallic Interconnects
Adam Whelan
Sponsor: Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC)
Experimental and Numerical Study of a Dual Chamber Thermosyphon
Aniruddha Pal
Sponsor: Packaging Research Center
Multi-scale Thermal Modeling Methodology for Electronic Enclosures
Qihong Nie
Sponsor: Office of Naval Research (ONR)
Development of Cooling Methods for 3D Electronics
Dr. David Gerlach
Sponsor: DARPA/Irvine Sensors
Compact, Low Temperature Refrigeration of Microprocessors
Lee Coggins
Sponsor: MARCO/DARPA/Interconnect Focus Center
Hot-Spot Management Using Microscale Evaporative Cooling
Hot-Spot Management Using Fluid-to-Fluid Spot-to-Spreader (FFSS) Technique
Forced convection Thermal Management of Microprocessors Using Carbon Nanotube Fins
Dr. Prajesh Bhattacharya
Sponsor: MARCO/DARPA/Interconnect Focus Center
Pool Boiling From Surfaces With Carbon Nanotube Micro-Structures
Dr. Prajesh Bhattacharya
Sponsor: MARCO/DARPA/Interconnect Focus Center
Modeling of High Power Density Data Centers
Jeff Rambo
Sponsor: CEETHERM
Reduced-Order Modeling of Thermal Systems
Jeff Rambo and Nathan Rolander
Sponsor: CEETHERM/Office of Naval Research (ONR)
Thermal Modeling and Characterization of Nanoscale Metallic Interconnects
Dr. Siva P. Gurrum
Sponsor: Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC)
Robust Configuration of Data Center Server Cabinets for Thermal Efficiency
Nathan Rolander
Sponsor: CEETHERM
Design of On-chip Compact Evaporators for Ultra-low Temperature Chip Operation
Robert Wadell
Sponsor: MARCO/DARPA/Interconnect Focus Center
Hybrid Micro-nano Structures for Boiling Heat Transfer Enhancement
Dr. Xiaojin Wei
Sponsor: MARCO/DARPA/Interconnect Focus Center
Porous Coldplates as a High Heat Flux Electronics Cooling Solution
Scott Wilson
Sponsor: ONR/Foster-Miller, Inc.
Thermal Management of Portable Electronics
Dr. Sang Hee Park
Sponsor: Georgia Tech Foundation
Compact Two-phase Indirect Liquid Cooling of a Laptop Computer
Adya Ali
Sponsor: Institute of Microelectronics, Singapore
Innovative Thermal Management of Electronics Used in Oil Well Logging
Juan-Carlos Jakaboski
Sponsor: Halliburton Energy Services
Flat Plate Thermosyphons for Space Constrained Applications
Sunil Murthy
Sponsor: Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC)
Metal Matrix Composites for Thermal Management of Power Electronics
Kevin Moores
Sponsor: DMc2 Corporation
Single Phase Micro-Fluid Loop for Cooling of Microelectronic Devices
Dr. Xiaojin Wei
Sponsor: Intel
Thermal Management of High Power System-On-Package Architectures
Jason Cook
Sponsor: Packaging Research Center
Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Boiling
Dr. Cherif Ould Lahoucine
Sponsor: Fulbright Fellowship
Thermal Management of Advanced Interconnects
Dr. Stephane Launay and MITf
Sponsor: MARCO/DARPA/Interconnect Focus Center
Computations of Thermal Management Systems for Offshore Oil Exploration Electronics
Dr. Qinghua Wang
Sponsor: Halliburton Energy Services