Objectives

This course will introduce working principles, modeling, and design of thermal management systems for electronics such as heat sinks, heat pipes/thermosiphons/vapor chambers, microchannel heat exchangers, and thermoelectric devices. The course will also cover hardware for thermal management of various electronic systems, including consumer electronics, defence, and space applications. Furthermore, this course will present students with practical and theoretical problems that will help them develop the quantitative skills required to model, evaluate, and optimize heat transfer in electronic devices and systems. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to analyze and design thermal management solutions for modern electronic systems.

Course summary

The course is designed for students interested in thermal engineering, especially as they apply to cooling of electronics. The course will provide an overview of the state-of-the-art of packaging and cooling challenges in electronics industry. Following this, various thermal management strategies will be introduced, before advancing to modeling of the same, where students will be exposed to measurement techniques for capturing various thermal/momentum transport parameters. Finally, the course will conclude with case studies on thermal management of electronic systems in different fields.

Total number of lectures: 36

Lecturewise breakup

1. Introduction & overview of thermal management of electronics: packaging and cooling technologies, trends and challenges (4 lectures)
2. Heat sinks & heat transfer in extended surfaces, natural and forced convection, modeling and types of heat sinks, contact resistance and role of thermal interface materials (6 lectures)
3. Heat pipes & two-phase systems & physical working principles of different types of heat pipes, types of heat pipes (wick-based heat pipes, grooved heat pipes, micro heat pipes, looped heat pipes, mechanically pumped loops, immersion cooling) (6 lectures)
4. Modeling & steady state modelling of two-phase heat transfer in various heat pipes, introduction to design of heat pipes, microchannel heat exchangers (single phase and two-phase heat transfer), boiling regimes, effects of wettability (5 lectures)
5. Radiative heat transfer & thermal surface finishes, multilayer insulation, radiators, cooling of spacecraft electronics, thermoelectric devices (Peltier, Seebeck and Thomson effects), thermoelectric figure of merit (6 lectures)
6. Characterization techniques & measurement techniques for temperature, velocity, pressure, heat flux, and thermal properties (5 lectures)
7. Case studies & thermal management of electronics in different fields, including consumer, defense, and spacecraft electronics; techniques such as jet impingement and ion-trap cooling; reliability and failure modes. (6 lectures)

Recommended books

Textbooks

1. Y. Shabany, Heat Transfer: Thermal Management of Electronics (1st Edition, eBook ISBN: 9780429092220, CRC Press, 2009).

Reference books

1. Thermal measurements in electronics cooling by K. Azar (1st Edition, ISBN-10: 0849332796, ISBN-13: 9780849332791, CRC Press, 1997)

2. Cooling of Electronic Systems by S. Kakaç, H. Yüncü, and K. Hijikata (1st Edition, ISBN-10: 0792327365, ISBN-13: 9780792327363, Kluwer Academic Publishers)

3. Heat Pipes: Theory, Design and Applications by D. Reay, P. Kew, and R. McGlen (6th Edition, ISBN-10: 0080982665, ISBN-13: 9780080982663, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2014)

4. Thermal Management Handbook: For Electronic Assemblies by J. Sergent (1st Edition, ISBN-10: 0070266999, ISBN-13: 9780 070266995, McGraw Hill Professional, 1998)

5. Thermal Management of Microelectronic Equipment by Lian-Tuu Yeh and R. C. Chu (1st Edition, ISBN-10: 0791800741, ISBN-13: 9780791800744, ASME Press, 2002)

Proposing instructors: Umesh Madanan