Over the last decade, compact and extreme-environment thermal management has made large strides. Conventional thermal management approaches aim to minimize thermal resistance to the surroundings in order to keep temperature fluctuations due to varying heat loads below some critical temperature (which varies by the application). However, in an attempt to simplify and multifunctionalize components in the interest of reducing size, weight, and power (SWaP) required to meet operational goals, transient responses to heat loads may bring failure to bear sooner.
In this talk, I will discuss key considerations when designing thermal management solutions for heavily SWaP-constrained platforms, and some recent demonstrations of these efforts coming out of our work at the Army Research Laboratory. Germane to these efforts are incorporation of phase-change enthalpy to extend thermal time constant when nearing a critical temperature. I will cover recent work in this area (both ours and others’) and will highlight recent trends across the micro- and nanoscale heat transfer community that provide insights into efficiently designing transient-aware thermal management solutions.
Dr. Adam A. Wilson leads the Thermal Sciences and Engineering Team at the Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, MD and serves as program manager for a multidisciplinary team of researchers across Army, Navy, and Air Force, and chairs the Interagency Advanced Power Group’s Electrical Materials Panel. He earned his B.S. degree in physics and B.A. in mathematics from University of Northern Iowa and his Ph.D. in Engineering Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Adam’s research in developing novel nanoscale thermal metrology techniques led him to Madrid, Spain as part of the NSF International Research Experience program, and then to the Army Research Laboratory for a postdoctoral appointment that has subsequently morphed into a career in federal civilian service researching thermal energy conversion, mitigation, and storage. He has received several honors and awards such as ARL’s Technically Bold Award, multiple Best Paper Awards at IEEE ITherm, and Northern Iowa’s Purple and Old Gold Award.