Boiling, evaporation, and condensation on micro and nano engineered structures have received significant interest over the last decade. It is now evident that such structures on surfaces hold great promise to advance liquid-vapor phase change systems and are key to enable thermal management of ultra-high heat flux systems, such as computer processing units (CPUs), laser diodes, and power amplifiers. Accordingly, there has been a significant increase in research efforts in these areas with a significant emergence in recent conferences. However, comprehensive understanding of complex phase-change processes is still needed, which is currently lacking, to harness these processes for various devices and important applications. Furthermore, a roadmap that defines the needs for the future generation of phase-change technologies needs to be developed. This workshop address these shortcomings and provide a roadmap to industry, government agencies, and the academic communities to accelerate and optimize the development of superior heat transfer methods offered by micro and nano technologies. To achieve these goals, the workshop focuses on: 1) State-of-the-art knowledge of phase change processes, 2) Advancements in modeling, metrology, manipulation capability, 3) Transformative opportunities and future directions for phase-change research, and 4) Development of phase-change devices and applications.
The grant supports this workshop by helping create a forum that brings together experts from various disciplines that will solve significant current and future thermal management challenges. The NSF support also allows extending the invitation to young participants as well as true pioneers to this workshop. The workshop brings together experts from various disciplines including mechanical engineering, chemical engineering and material science, with an emphasis on the heat transfer community to identify critical challenges, advancements, and new directions in phase-change research. The two-day extensive workshop identifies key research, development, and design needs, and provides a guideline for such future endeavors. The outcome of this workshop is focused on developing a roadmap that defines the needs for the future generation of phase-change technologies, as well as documented in archival review articles.
Boiling, evaporation, and condensation on micro and nano engineered surfaces have received significant interest over the last decade. These structures on surfaces hold great promise to advance liquid-vapor phase change systems and are important to enable thermal management of ultra-high flux systems, such as computer processing unit (CPU), laser diodes, and power amplifiers. Accordingly, there has been a substantial increase in research efforts in these areas with a significant emergence in recent publications, workshops, and conferences. A comprehensive understanding of complex phase-change heat transfer processes on nano and micro surfaces is still lacking. To address this shortcoming and to develop a roadmap to industry, government agencies, and the academic communities, a group of about 100 experts from the fields of mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and material science engineering met for a two day workshop in the MIT's Endicott House to attend the Workshop on Micro and Nano Structures for phase change heat Transfer. A roadmap aiming to define the pathway for future generation of phase-change technologies was discussed. A set of recommendations were proposed by the workshop attendees and will be detailed in a special issue in the journal Nanoscale and Microscale Thermophysical Engineering (NMTE), which will appear in the July 2014 issue.
