Chapter Four · failure evidence
What Thermal Dissipation & Heat Exchangers got wrong, from 71 dissertations
Thermal management and heat exchanger investigations frequently encounter operational limits across passive cooling, advanced fluid loops, and compact channel geometries. System performance is compromised by material bottlenecks, flow maldistributions, thermal runaway events, and inaccurate heat transfer modeling assumptions. These records come from PhD theses at 20 institutions, 2021 to 2026. Each links to its thesis. They were extracted by language models reading the full text, so treat each as a lead to read, not a verdict.
Passive air, phase change, and oscillating heat pipe designs often lack sufficient cooling capacity
Finned passive heat sinks, single-phase loops, and tab cooling suffer from inadequate thermal capacitance or restricted surface dissipation under demanding thermal loads. Additionally, oscillating heat pipes and phase change materials underperform direct liquid cooling or solid conductive heat sinks due to low diffusivity, displacement of conductive metal, and slow thermal recovery times.
Tried and failed
finned passive air heat sinks applied to compact high-power electronic modules. Reason: insufficient thermal dissipation capacity within strict volume and weight constraints
First Order Thermal Model of the Navy integrated Power Electronics Building Block · MIT
Tried and failed
natural convection cooling with finned heat sink applied to condenser heat rejection. Reason: downward fin orientation caused air stagnation and insufficient heat transfer rate
Sorption-based atmospheric water harvesting: from atoms to applications · MIT
Tried and failed
concentric tube thermal cooling applied to thick electromagnetic solenoid coils. Reason: insufficient heat removal capacity for high-thickness coil sections
Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics with strongly correlated fermions · EPFL
Tried and failed
passive air heat sink cooling applied to high-power 3D stacked integrated circuits. Reason: insufficient thermal dissipation capacity resulted in junction temperatures exceeding critical safety limits
Power Delivery and Thermal-Aware Electronic Design Automation Solutions for High-Performance 3D ICs · Georgia Tech
Tried and failed
sensible heat rejection via single-phase liquid loop applied to transient high-temperature peak thermal loads. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: insufficient thermal capacitance without phase change materials or active refrigeration under worst-case ambient conditions
An Architecting Methodology for Thermal Management Systems of Commercial Aircraft at the Conceptual Design Phase · Georgia Tech
Lost to a baseline
In open procedure conditions, solid metal electrodes outperformed paraffin-core PCM electrodes in thermal mitigation due to higher intrinsic thermal conductivity
An Investigation of Thermal Mitigation Strategies for Electroporation-Based Therapies · Virginia Tech
Lost to a baseline
Base case (solid aluminium heatsink without PCM) remained below 140°C for 2.6 s longer than inactive PCM (LM220) due to PCM's lower thermal conductivity displacing aluminium.
Enhancement of fault current contribution from inverter-based resources · Imperial
Tried and failed
phase change material for transient thermal management applied to power electronic switches under surge currents. Outcome: too slow. Reason: device commutation limits and slow thermal re-solidification recovery period prevent repetitive high fault current handling
Enhancement of fault current contribution from inverter-based resources · Imperial
Tried and failed
tab cooling thermal management applied to pouch lithium-ion battery cells. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: insufficient tab cross-sectional area caused higher average temperatures and accelerated degradation
Life-cycle modelling of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles · Imperial
Tried and failed
bottom-side substrate cooling applied to high-frequency transient thermal management. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: low thermal diffusivity prevents heat dissipation during short transient timescales under high switching frequencies
Thermally Aware Design Approaches for High Power Density Ultra-Wide Bandgap Power Electronics · Georgia Tech
Lost to a baseline
Under 1C discharge at 25 °C ambient, large-scale PHP reached Tmax of 45 °C compared to 35.8 °C for liquid cooling and ~42.5 °C for forced air cooling.
A Pulsating Heat Pipe Based Thermal Management System for Lithium-ion Batteries · Carleton University Institutional Repository
Lost to a baseline
Under 1C discharge at 40 °C ambient, large-scale PHP reached Tmax of 55.5 °C compared to 45 °C for liquid cooling.
A Pulsating Heat Pipe Based Thermal Management System for Lithium-ion Batteries · Carleton University Institutional Repository
Lost to a baseline
Liquid cooling achieved Tmax of 39.0 °C compared to large-scale PHP's 43.0 °C under 2C discharge at 25 °C ambient.
A Pulsating Heat Pipe Based Thermal Management System for Lithium-ion Batteries · Carleton University Institutional Repository
Lost to a baseline
Liquid cooling achieved Tmax of 35.8 °C compared to small-scale PHP's 39.0 °C at 1C discharge (25 °C ambient).
A Pulsating Heat Pipe Based Thermal Management System for Lithium-ion Batteries · Carleton University Institutional Repository
Thermal stresses and high operating temperatures cause mechanical cracking, delamination, and material degradation
High thermal and pressure loads cause gasket seal failures, microheater open circuits, thin film delamination, and cracking along pressure boundaries. Prolonged thermal exposure also triggers phase transitions, polymer hose wear from friction, and disproportionation or decomposition across composite and electrolyte materials.
Tried and failed
copper gaskets for high temperature pressure sealing applied to high-temperature high-pressure gas cooling loops. Reason: copper gaskets suffered thermal failure and lost seal integrity under elevated operating temperatures and heat fluxes
Thermo-Fluids Perfromance of Helium Cooled Divertors Emphasizing Plate-Type Concepts · Georgia Tech
Tried and failed
thin-film microheaters on thick oxide buffers applied to thermal actuation of phase-change materials. Reason: microheaters experienced electrical open-circuit failure at low currents due to thermal dissipation and stress
Phase Change Material Based Reconfigurable Phase Shifters and Filters for mmWave Antenna Arrays · Georgia Tech
Tried and failed
deep reactive-ion etching applied to bonded thin-film heterostructures. Outcome: unstable. Reason: process chamber heating induced thermal stress causing thin film delamination at the bonded interface
Tried and failed
monolithic integrated pressure shell structure applied to high-pressure gas cooling channels. Reason: thermal stress induced cracks propagating to the pressure boundary under high thermal and pressure loads
Thermo-Fluids Perfromance of Helium Cooled Divertors Emphasizing Plate-Type Concepts · Georgia Tech
Lost to a baseline
Under ISOS-D-2 thermal stress at 85°C, PEAI (TFE:DMF) 2D/3D devices degraded to 47% of initial PCE after 1000 h, performing worse than the control 3D perovskite devices due to 2D-capping layer disproportionation into n = 1 phase and PbI2.
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Rejected welded deep-drawn Alloy 625 sheet metal shrouding due to structural mechanics/durability failure under thermal loads, forcing monolithic casting or additive manufacturing.
Einstufige Abgasturboaufladung von Pkw-Motoren mit Luftüberschuss für einen realtitätsnahen Fahrzyklus Single-Stage Turbocharging of Lean-Burn Passenger Car Engines for Real-World Driving Cycles · Leibniz Universität Hannover Repository
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Rejected thin plastic connecting hose due to rapid thermal degradation caused by pump rotor-stator friction.
Performance and Design of Extruded Fiber-Reinforced Mortar with Preferentially Aligned Fibers · Virginia Tech
Tried and failed
extended pyrolysis duration for carbon-metal oxide composites applied to battery cathode materials. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: prolonged thermal treatment degraded structural stability leading to rapid capacity fading after initial cycling
Tried and failed
vacuum post-annealing of mechanochemically synthesized materials applied to halide solid electrolytes. Outcome: unstable. Reason: vacuum annealing induced thermal decomposition and unwanted phase transitions
Understanding ion transport in halide solid electrolytes with varying mobile species · Imperial
Lost to a baseline
At 3.05 wt% PDA-G-C loading, the composite TIM exhibited slightly higher modeled thermal stress than neat epoxy due to higher storage modulus.
High Thermal Conductivity Epoxy Composites In The Application Of 3D Semiconductor Packaging · Georgia Tech
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Rejected standard PC (polycarbonate) stamping/transfer for MnBi2Te4 because heating up to 180 °C melts PC and causes thermal degradation/reconstruction of the crystal, replacing it with cryogenic PDMS transfer.
Probing Quantum Geometric Phenomena in Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulators · Harvard
Numerical solvers and analytical thermal formulations fail when simplified assumptions omit key physical dynamics
Simplified convective heat balance approximations, linear temperature profiles, and constant property assumptions produce large temperature errors and model divergence over transient cycles. Furthermore, physics-informed neural networks and continuum models fail when they neglect non-local transport, unphysical boundary conditions, and spatial heat capacitance variations.
Tried and failed
Physics-informed neural networks for conjugate heat transfer applied to indirect liquid cooling thermal modeling. Outcome: did not generalise. Reason: Inconsistent temperature drop trends across varying flow rates between PINN, CFD, and experimental data
Experimental Validation of Indirect Liquid Cooling Computational Thermal Modeling · MIT
Tried and failed
axial marching subchannel solver with crossflow applied to low-flow natural circulation thermal hydraulics. Outcome: unstable. Reason: low flow rates, steep radial power gradients, and small subchannel geometry caused numerical instabilities
A Whole-Core Thermal Hydraulic Model for Pin-Fueled Fluoride-Salt-Cooled Reactors · Georgia Tech
Tried and failed
effective medium continuum model applied to nanofluid effective thermal conductivity. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: neglects nanoscale interfacial thermal resistance and non-local transport mechanisms present in atomistic mixtures
Non-local methods in transport phenomena · UT Austin
Tried and failed
heat balance with convective transfer assumptions applied to radiant cooling load calculation. Outcome: did not generalise. Reason: tabulated coefficients assume purely convective heat extraction, underestimating cooling requirements for radiant systems
Indoor and outdoor radiant cooling systems for buildings · UT Austin
Lost to a baseline
Simplified in-flight analytical cooling model was beaten by the detailed numerical heat transfer/forced-convection model developed with University of Warwick due to underestimating convective heat loss.
Drop-on-demand metal additive manufacturing from droplet formation to 3D structures · University of Nottingham Repository
Tried and failed
linear temperature profile approximation applied to counter-flow heat exchanger modeling. Outcome: did not generalise. Reason: unbalanced fluid heat capacitance causes nonlinear thermal profiles leading to large mean fluid temperature errors
ON THE SUITABILITY OF PRINTED CIRCUIT HEAT EXCHANGERS FOR HIGH TEMPERATURE NUCLEAR SERVICE · Georgia Tech
Tried and failed
constant thermal properties in dynamic heat transfer applied to battery thermal equivalent circuit modeling. Outcome: did not generalise. Reason: cumulative error over long transient cycles caused model divergence from experimental data
Thermal-managed oriented, multi-domain battery modelling and experimental validation. · Cranfield
Tried and failed
binary phase initialization with linear conductivity mixing applied to multiphase heat transfer modeling. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: Overestimated effective heat dissipation, severely underpredicting localized phase change volume and melt dimensions
Tried and failed
prescribing surface heat flux boundary condition applied to stable boundary layer simulations. Outcome: unstable. Reason: caused unphysical excessive cooling during the decay of inertial oscillations
Power output and wake effects of very large wind farms investigated by large-eddy simulations · Leibniz Universität Hannover Repository
Lost to a baseline
The Vernacchia et al. theoretical burn rate coefficient model over-predicted measured burn rate coefficients from this thesis's motor tests by 20% to 25% due to higher casing thermal losses.
Integrated Design of Solid Rocket Powered Vehicles Including Exhaust Plume Radiant Emission · MIT
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Rejected conventional regular convection boundary (RCB) with constant bulk temperature because it led to excessive cooling and failed to capture transient conductive heat retention
Bead shape control using multi-energy source (mes) for wire-based directed energy deposition (ded) process. · Cranfield
Heat dissipation is severely constrained by bulk material bottlenecks and high thermal resistance interfaces
Enhancing outer spreaders or barrier layers produces negligible gains when low thermal conductivity in underlying substrates or surrounding formations dominates the heat path. Interfacial layers such as thermal interface materials, thick coatings, unpowered modules, and filler aggregation introduce severe thermal resistance that induces localized hot spots.
Lost to a baseline
Unpowered TEM heat sinks exhibited lower effectiveness (0.341 high flow, 0.592 low flow) than bare heat sinks without TEMs (0.698 and 0.811) due to TEM thermal resistance.
Modelling of a Heat Recovery Ventilator Incorporating Thermoelectric Modules · Queens University Institutional Repository
Tried and failed
increasing nanofiller loading in polymer composites applied to thermal conductivity enhancement in polymers. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: nanosheet aggregation impeded phonon motion across the matrix
Tried and failed
increasing thermal conductivity of intermediate barrier layer applied to coaxial borehole heat exchanger performance. Reason: energy output becomes limited by surrounding formation thermal resistance, yielding diminishing returns
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Rejected Parylene-C coatings (>10 µm) for water immersion due to high thermal resistance (0.1 W/(m K)) yielding lower performance than uncoated dies in dielectric fluid.
Two-phase immersion cooling for power dense printed circuit board converters · Oxford
Tried and failed
heat pipe integration for internal thermal management applied to low thermal conductivity magnetic cores. Reason: low bulk material thermal conductivity restricted conduction to embedded heat pipes, causing local hot spots
Thermal Analysis of Indirect Liquid Cooling for the Navy integrated Power Electronics Building Block · MIT
Tried and failed
indirect liquid cooling via conduction interface pad applied to magnetic component thermal management. Reason: insufficient conduction heat transfer through the interface pad caused temperatures to exceed the thermal limit
Thermal Analysis of Indirect Liquid Cooling for the Navy integrated Power Electronics Building Block · MIT
Tried and failed
increasing encapsulant thermal conductivity applied to semiconductor thermal management. Outcome: no signal. Reason: diminishing returns when the primary heat conduction path is dominated by high-conductivity die attach
Thermally Aware Design Approaches for High Power Density Ultra-Wide Bandgap Power Electronics · Georgia Tech
Tried and failed
gap-filling thermal interface material for heat dissipation applied to thermoelectric cooling system thermal interface. Reason: thermal resistance was too high, preventing sufficient heat dissipation
The Wide-Field Infrared Transient Explorer (WINTER): a new near-infrared time-domain survey · MIT
Tried and failed
increasing heat spreader thermal conductivity applied to ultra-wide-bandgap semiconductor devices. Reason: the low intrinsic thermal conductivity of the underlying substrate acts as the primary thermal bottleneck
Thermally Aware Design Approaches for High Power Density Ultra-Wide Bandgap Power Electronics · Georgia Tech
Tried and failed
stainless steel construction for high-power plasma vessel applied to multicusp ion source chamber. Reason: poor thermal conductivity caused aperture thermal distortion during continuous high-power operation
Ion Source Development for IsoDAR and Multi-Messenger Astrophysics with KamLAND · MIT
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Rejected PCB windings due to poor thermal conductivity of winding material/surrounding insulation causing excessive thermal hot spots at higher power levels.
Design of a 405/430 kHz, 100 kW Transformer with Medium Voltage Insulation Sheets · Virginia Tech
Complex channel geometries and manifold configurations induce excessive pressure drop and flow maldistribution
Internal honeycombs, sharp channel bends, and reduced channel radii cause severe pressure penalties, flow choking, and insufficient coolant circulation. Moreover, axial inlet manifolds and parallel routing across serially powered elements cause severe flow maldistribution and uneven temperature gradients.
Tried and failed
staggered pin fin arrangement for heat transfer applied to jet impingement cooling. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: channel-flow assumptions inverted under jet impingement; inline arrangements achieved superior thermal performance
DIGITAL CODESIGN OF A POWER MODULE WITH INTEGRATED THERMAL MANAGEMENT · Georgia Tech
Tried and failed
pulsating flow heat transfer enhancement applied to restricted exhaust thermal cooling channels. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: flow pulsations universally degraded heat transfer coefficients across tested frequencies and amplitudes in restricted geometry
Generative constructal design for thermal flow systems · Imperial
Tried and failed
reducing internal cooling channel radius applied to conformal cooling in stamping dies. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: insufficient circulated coolant volume impaired overall heat transfer performance
Design for additive manufacturing of hot stamping tools · Imperial
Tried and failed
axial inlet manifold for multi-channel distribution applied to parallel cooling channel flow distribution. Reason: inlet momentum and corner separation caused severe flow maldistribution across parallel channels
Investigation of a helium-cooled modular divertor with multiple jets using a reversed heat flux approach · Georgia Tech
Tried and failed
Internal honeycomb fin structures for flow conditioning applied to Vascular cooling network inlet channels. Reason: Internal structures acted as a converging nozzle, causing early flow choking and severe pressure drop
Generative constructal design for thermal flow systems · Imperial
Lost to a baseline
In ARCH IHX, Hastelloy-N/Ni-201 MMLC tubing maintains higher FLiBe velocities and smaller tube diameters compared to degraded Hastelloy-N, but results in higher cumulative pressure losses (increasing required pumping power) and higher thermal stresses at the interface.
Expanding the Operating Envelopes of Advanced Reactors with Multi-Metallic Layered Composite Materials · Georgia Tech
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Rejected microchannel internal cooling configurations for wind tunnel testing because small channel cross-sections could not supply sufficient coolant mass flow for high blowing ratio film cooling.
Optimization and characterization of integrated cooling circuit for gas turbine cooling · UT Austin
Tried and failed
Parallel cooling channels for series thermoelectric coolers applied to thermoelectric temperature control systems. Reason: Parallel coolant flow across serially powered elements caused uneven heat dissipation and thermal gradients
Robotic manipulation to investigate the physical principles of biological self-organization · EPFL
Tried and failed
double helix cooling channel design applied to cylindrical thermal jacket cooling. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: 180-degree bends caused high pressure drops and limited full surface area coverage, creating localized hot spots
Design of an FSAE Cooling System for Electric In-hub Motors · MIT
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Rejected parallel cooling channel routing beneath Peltier elements because warming water produced uneven heat dissipation across serially wired zones; switched to orthogonal routing.
Robotic manipulation to investigate the physical principles of biological self-organization · EPFL
Thermal runaway and severe overheating occur due to localized liquid dryout and dense thermal coupling
Microchannel texturing can induce premature liquid dryout and thermal runaway when high heat fluxes starve the surface of liquid. In densely packed active electronics and exothermic reactions, strong inter-component thermal coupling and current increases overwhelm dissipation and trigger catastrophic runaway.
Tried and failed
short dense micropillar surface texturing applied to microchannel flow boiling heat transfer. Outcome: unstable. Reason: short dense structures induced permanent local liquid dryout and premature thermal runaway at high heat flux
Surface structure enhanced microchannel flow boiling of low surface tension fluids · MIT
Lost to a baseline
Short-dense micropillared channel suffered early dryout and thermal runaway at 306 W/cm², performing worse than the smooth channel below ~300 W/cm².
Surface structure enhanced microchannel flow boiling of low surface tension fluids · MIT
Lost to a baseline
Devices with 4 parallel segmented stripes sharing a p-well or deep trench (Devices 4 and 5) exhibited higher thermal resistance (RTH) than separated stripes (Device 3) due to increased mutual thermal coupling.
Advancing SiGe HBT Performance: A Study on RF-SOA Prediction, BEOL Engineering, and Layout-Driven Reliability Optimization · Georgia Tech
Tried and failed
adding back-end dummy metal layers for heat dissipation applied to heterojunction bipolar transistor power amplifiers. Outcome: unstable. Reason: current density increase overwhelmed thermal resistance reduction, triggering premature thermal runaway
Advancing SiGe HBT Performance: A Study on RF-SOA Prediction, BEOL Engineering, and Layout-Driven Reliability Optimization · Georgia Tech
Tried and failed
Passive room-temperature cooling during volumetric photopolymerization applied to large-scale volumetric additive manufacturing. Outcome: unstable. Reason: Exothermic thermal runaway caused uncontrolled overcuring and adhesion to the container wall.
POLYMERIZATION AND VOLUMETRIC PRINTING OF SOFT COMPOSITES · Cornell
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Using lower-cost DC blocking capacitors cooled by forced-convection 120 mm fans instead of RF-rated disc capacitors, which failed due to severe thermal runaway (>80 C within 3 minutes).
Accelerator Design and Measurements of Proton-Lithium-7 Fusion Cross Section Enhancement · Carleton University Institutional Repository
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Rejected relying purely on pulsed-mode voltage measurements without emitter ballasting to study pinch-in, because high thermal resistance still caused thermal runaway before reaching impact-ionization limits.
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Organolithium-mediated benzyne arylation of phenothiazine was rejected for scale-up due to safety risks of thermal runaway exotherms at intermediate temperatures where the lithium salt dissolved.
Synthesis of Diazaphospholenes for Improved Catalysis · DalSpace
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Rejected using fixed chiplet sizes and maximum packing densities in multi-chip modules due to inter-chiplet thermal coupling and thermal runaway violations.
Temperature-aware 3D-integrated systolic array DNN accelerators · OpenBU
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Rejected single-cell thermal runaway vent parameters as conservative design inputs for multi-cell modules due to distinct propagation mechanics
Fire & explosion hazards due to thermal runaway propagation in lithium-ion battery systems · UT Austin
Adverse fluid properties and unintended phase behaviors impede heat exchange across operating environments
Surface micro-structuring and conducting fins can trap fluid pockets or induce reverse thermal gradients that direct vapor into cold regions. In other configurations, increased fluid viscosity, ice accumulation, ambient humidity, and electrical conductivity violations prevent effective heat transfer and fluid transport.
Tried and failed
surface micro-structuring for enhanced transport applied to cross-plane channel heat transfer. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: trapped fluid pockets create insulating regions that degrade overall thermal conductivity across the channel
Superhydrophobic surfaces: their hydrodynamic stability, thermal resistance and boundary layers · Imperial
Tried and failed
embedded heat conducting fins applied to sublimation and vapor extraction in porous media. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: induced reverse thermal gradients causing vapor flow and redeposition deeper into cold unheated porous regions
Experimentation and modeling of mass and heat transport for the design of lunar in-situ resource utilization technology · Georgia Tech
Lost to a baseline
At 80% filling ratio, the thermal performance of the PHP with pure DI water was superior to all MEPCM suspensions across all heat inputs due to increased fluid viscosity.
Behaviours of droplets interaction with solid surfaces and thermal performance of a pulsating heat pipe · University of Nottingham Repository
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Thermally driven nanocapillary filling on a hot plate rejected due to long heating times (tens of minutes) causing solvent evaporation and altered buffer conductivity
Biophysical applications of correlative scanning probe and super-resolution microscopy · EPFL
Tried and failed
thermally decoupling counter-current flow channels applied to absorption refrigeration bubble pumps. Outcome: worse than baseline. Reason: loss of internal heat recovery caused excessive heat transfer and overheating in downstream components
Computer-aided molecular and system design of diffusion absorption solar-cooling systems · Imperial
Tried and failed
direct liquid cooling with tap water applied to high-voltage power electronics. Reason: electrical conductivity of non-deionized water violates required electrical isolation standards
Cooling Power Electronic Building Blocks Aboard Navy Ships · MIT
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Rejected ice-water heat source for copper due to ice buildup inhibiting thermal equilibrium.
A Study of the Temperature Variation of Thermal Conductivity of 304 and 316 Stainless Steel and Copper · TXST Digital Repository
Considered and rejected
Considered and rejected: Rejected air-mediated adiabatic evaporative cooling and passive radiative cooling for humid climates due to performance vanishing at high ambient humidity (e.g. RH > 80%).
Heat and mass transfer in porous materials for passive energy-conversion devices · IRIS - POLITO - prod
Left open by the authors
Problems the authors named and did not get to.
Left open
Optimize microfluidic delivery manifolds by simulating port splitting and flow paths matched to chip thermal powermaps. Blocker: None
DENSE INTERCONNECTION AND ADVANCED COOLING TECHNOLOGIES FOR 2.5D AND 3D HETEROGENEOUS INTEGRATED CIRCUITS · Georgia Tech
Left open
Perform CFD simulations of cooling channels with dimples or ribs to optimize heat transfer and pressure drop for in-hub motors. Blocker: None
Design of an FSAE Cooling System for Electric In-hub Motors · MIT
Left open
Optimize propulsor duct cooling fin geometry and evaluate performance degradation from airborne contaminants and stator heat sink integration via CFD simulation. Blocker: None
Design feasability of the electrical network for turboelectric aircraft propulsion. · Cranfield
Left open
Repeat thermal flow rate sensor experiments on microchannels, heat pipes, and electronic cooling systems to improve laminar flow sensitivity. Blocker: Requires physical experimental setups (microchannels, heat pipes, electronic chips) and custom sensor hardware.
Intelligent Non-Invasive Thermal Energy Flow Rate Sensor for Laminar and Turbulent Pipe Flows · Virginia Tech
Left open
Develop higher-fidelity CFD simulations for in-hub electric motor cooling sleeve designs beyond simplified representative curved channel sectors. Blocker: Lacks specific details or metrics on what physical effects or boundary conditions to include for higher fidelity
Design of an FSAE Cooling System for Electric In-hub Motors · MIT
Left open
Differentiate power dissipation from current density as the root cause of PIN PCSS failure at ~1.75 kA/cm2. Blocker: Requires fabricated 4H-SiC PIN PCSS devices, high-power pulsed UV lasers, and specialized high-voltage failure testing apparatus.
Photocurrent efficiency and limitations in 4H-SiC photoconductive semiconductor switches · Texas Tech
Left open
Quantify cumulative multi-particle Brownian stirring effects on thermal conductivity enhancement in dense nanofluids using hydrodynamic interaction simulations. Blocker: None
Basis transform solution for Brinkman equation to describe unsteady hydrodynamic interactions · Texas Tech
Left open
Optimize thermal desorption of nanoporous silicon preconcentrators at temperatures above 70 °C to reduce analysis time and improve preconcentration factor. Blocker: Requires a physical lab setup, fabricated nanoporous silicon devices, and hardware heating elements beyond the current Peltier cooler
Nanoporous Silicon in Gas Preconcentration and Sensing · Cambridge
Left open
Investigate foulant layer characteristics (density, pore structure, thermal conductivity) and their relationship to deposition modes and flux loss in membrane distillation. Blocker: Requires direct contact membrane distillation experimental lab setups and material characterization tools.
Promoting the recovery of water through innovative treatment and desalination systems within water-intensive energy production processes: Three case studies · IRIS - POLITO - prod
Left open
Investigate phase separation kinetics and cargo diffusion pathways in PFH-hexane liquid-shell microcapsules under thermal stimuli. Blocker: Requires wet lab equipment, microfluidic devices, chemical synthesis, and specialized thermal imaging/characterization apparatus.
Engineering Functional Microcapsules for Controlled Cargo Delivery · Harvard
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