Fall 2001

ME/IE 8773-8774

Design and Optimization of Air-Cooled Heat Sinks for Sustainable Development

by

Avram Bar-Cohen, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
and
H.W. Sweatt Chair and Director
Center for the Development of Technological Leadership
University of Minnesota

Wednesday, December 12, 2001
3:30-4:30 p.m.
Room 108 ME
Broadcast on UNITE Channel A
Coffee and cookies will be available in 152 ME following the seminar

Due to the rapid proliferation of electronic systems, substantial material streams and energy consumption rates are associated with the cooling of computers. Heat sinks are the "technology of choice" for the thermal management of high power microelectronic components and their use contributes in a dramatic way to the depletion rate of key resources on this planet. The development of microelectronic heat sinks, which are compatible with sustainable development, involves the achievement of a subtle balance between a superior thermal design, minimum material consumption, and minimum pumping power. This presentation will include discussion of a design methodology, using an expanded definition of the familiar Coefficient of Performance (COP), which seeks to maximize the thermal energy extracted from a specified space, while minimizing the material and energy consumed in the fabrication and operation of the specified heat sink. The contribution to "sustainability" of this methodology will be explored by reference to the least-energy optimization of natural- and forced-convection cooled rectangular plate heat sinks for advanced microprocessor applications.

Avram Bar-Cohen is Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Minnesota and serves concurrently as the Director of the University's Center for the Development of Technological Leadership, where he also holds the H.W. Sweatt Chair in Technological Leadership. He is a Fellow of ASME and IEEE, a member of ASME's Nanotechnology Institute Steering Committee, and is the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies. Bar-Cohen is the co-author of Design and Analysis of Heat Sinks and Thermal Analysis and Control of Electronic Equipment and co-edits the ASME Press Series Advances in Thermal Modeling of Electronic Components and Systems. He has authored and co-authored some 200 journal papers, refereed proceedings, and chapters in books. He currently serves as the Chair of the US Scientific Committee of the Assembly for International Heat Transfer Conferences. Among other awards, Bar-Cohen was honored by receipt of the ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award in 1999 and the ASME Worcester Reed Warner Medal in 2000.

Informal Faculty Luncheon: Wednesday, December 12, 2001, 12:30 p.m. Prof. Bar-Cohen will be able to attend.