Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Heat is omnipresent in today's society from microelectronics to industrial processes to solar radiation. Thermal conversion and management of these heat sources is a growing field of study as new products generate greater heat loads and as society looks to expand its use of solar energy. Indeed, single phase thermal management strategies are being replaced with two-phase heat exchangers for precision temperature control and for other practical reasons such as size and weight reduction. However, there lacks reliable predictive capabilities of the heat transfer rates associated with nucleate boiling due to the coalescence of multiphase thermal fluid mechanisms. Greater insight into the underlying mechanisms is therefore required to assist in the design and optimization of novel thermal management strategies. The purpose of the present program is to extend the predictive capabilities of the Capillary equation for inclined nucleate boiling and for gas formations in an electric field, to apply the thermelectric effect to multiphase systems and to convert the heat of solar radiation to electricity. In improving our understanding of the effect of electrostatic forces on bubble evolution, models more accurately predicting the heat transfer control of an electric field may be developed. The impact of this work gravitates towards heat exchanger designs for which nucleation sites are on an incline and for which the heat transfer rate is passively controlled through the electrohydrodynamic interaction between an electric field and a fluid. The motivation for this work is to improve efficiency and the running capacity of industrial processes. In this capacity, the present research program will extend the multiphase thermal management strategies to remote electronic devices that are typically limited to single phase heat diffusion techniques due to industry restrictions. Novel thermoelectric solutions to the problem will be presented providing a trajectory to light weight and reliable heat exchangers for the topical Canadian Information Technology and Communication industry. Furthermore, novel solar radiation heat recovery techniques will be explored in an effort to move towards an efficient thermoelectric conversion technique of the most abundant source of heat, solar thermal energy.