New Innovations here at the S2TS lab!

The S2TS lab along with our Advanced Heat Exchangers and Process Intensification (AHXPI) consortium at the University of Maryland, College Park, is engaged in cutting-edge research in the fields of advanced heat and mass and thermal management systems. The research at AHX-PI is of particular significance to applications in advanced energy conversion, advanced heat/mass exchangers, process intensification, electronics cooling, and innovative design and manufacturing of components for energy conversion systems.

Through innovative research and technology development activities, we strive to anticipate the needs of our sponsors and exceed their expectations. Our research projects also include innovative and advanced manufacturing techniques for energy conversion and thermal management applications. This includes emerging fields such as additive manufacturing and the use of micro and nano systems for process intensification and optimization.

Since its inception in 1993, the AHX-PI Laboratory has been involved in a number of basic and applied studies in the field of active and passive heat transfer augmentation techniques, mass transfer, and energy conversion. Over the years, the Laboratory has successfully developed the technical know-how and the knowledge base critical to the incorporation of emerging technologies into practical applications ready for commercial use.

Through its affiliation with the Computer Aided Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) Center and the Center for Environmental Energy Engineering (CEEE), the Laboratory is dedicated to developing advanced heat exchangers and smart thermal management techniques as solutions to future thermal systems.

Our Laboratory may be best known for its contributions to the development of small and smart thermos fluidic systems through the Electro Hydrodynamics Technique (EHD). The EHD technique utilizes an inducted electric field to promote and manipulate fluid flow and thermal fields in a given application. Among other advantages, EHD may be particularly suitable for applications in which active (online/on-demand) control of a process is necessary.

With the aim of creating more sustainable technology to meet industrial requirements, the Laboratory now provides a multitude of advantages in various fields, such as the ability to spot-cool high heat flux regions, enhance macro-level performance by optimization of micro-level heat transfer, and enable system-level miniaturization and integration.

RECENT PROJECTS

Thermal Management and Packaging of High Power DC-DC Converters

Two-phase flow regimes and Heat Transfer in a manifolded-microgap

Next Generation Mass Exchanger

High-Temperature Heat Exchanger Test Facility

Enhanced Cooling System for Power Electronics

Velocity Based Droplet Defrost Control

Electrostatic Based Droplet Separation System

Novel Polymer Composite Heat Exchanger for Dry Cool Power Plants

UPCOMING EVENTS

OUR MISSION

Identify at early stages promising emerging technologies in heat and mass transfer enhancement with applications to development of miniaturized and smart heat exchangers and thermal management systems. Through combined analytical and experimental studies we will address the feasibility, manufacturing, and operational issues, and to evaluate the potential for near term implementation in the next generation of advanced, high performance energy conversion systems.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Fall 2024 CEEE Consortium Meetings: The Fall 2024 Consortium Meetings will be held at the University of Maryland, College Park campus from Monday, September 16th to Wednesday, September 18th. The AHXPI consortium will take place on Tuesday, September 17th, 2024. These meetings are held twice a year and include research presentations by our students and faculty to sponsors, feedback sessions, lab tours, and networking events.

NEWS & EVENTS

Consoritum
Consortium

AHX-PI – The Fall Consortium

Fall 2024 CEEE Consortium Meetings: The Fall 2024 Consortium Meetings will be held at the University of Maryland, College Park campus from Monday, September 16th to Wednesday, September 18th. The AHXPI consortium will take place on Tuesday, September 17th, 2024. These meetings are held twice a year and include research presentations by our students and

Read More »
Paper written.
News & Events

What’s the best way to fight frost on HVAC&R equipment?

It’s a cold, hard fact: Frost accretion commonly plagues HVAC&R systems, impacting the equipment’s operating efficiency and leading to increased energy consumption. A research team from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Energy Engineering (CEEE) explores energy-effective frost control techniques in the September 15, 2024 issue of Applied Thermal Engineering. The literature review examines

Read More »
CEEE's 2024 Ph.D. graduates: Ellery Klein (left) and Harsimranjit Singh (right), pictured with his advisor, Michael Ohadi
News & Events

Congratulations 2024 CEEE Graduates!

Best wishes to CEEE’s recent graduates: Ellery Klein, Ph.D., whose thesis focused on “Development of Variable Tube Geometry Heat Exchangers Using Adjoint Method With Performance Evaluation of an Additively Manufactured Prototype.” He recently started a position as a building systems engineer at Steven Winter Associates, Inc. in Washington, D.C. Harsimranjit Singh, Ph.D., who authored the

Read More »
David Hymas, Gargi Kailkhura, Dr. Martinus Arie, Dr. Farah Singer, Dr. Amir Shooshtari, Dr. Michael Ohadi, Dr. Hugh Bruck

This project focuses on utilizing a newly developed form of additive manufacturing that is capable of produce high performance, lightweight heat exchangers out of readily available polymers and metals. This significantly reduces the amount of labor required to produce heat exchangers while also reducing the cost of the materials involved. Through continued development of the Metal Fiber Composite printing process and utilization of advanced materials, the team hopes to extend these capabilities to a wide range of applications including waste heat recover and electronics cooling.

 

AdSevket Umut Yuruker, Raphael Mandel, Michael Ohadi

This project focuses on developing an innovative cooling system with a feasible packaging configuration for high power, variable voltage DC-DC converter modules. The goals of the project is to significantly reduce the size of the commercially available converter modules (x20) and provide sufficient cooling for the high frequency (~500 kHz- 1MHz) switches, transformer wingdings and the magnetic core. A novel 3D printable metal manifold micro-channel module, which double functions as the cooler and electrical terminals for the high frequency transistors, is under development to be integrated with the systems to remediate the significantly elevated heat fluxes due to reduction in size and increase in operating frequency.

Fabio Battaglia, Xiang Zhang, Dr. Martinus Arie, Dr. Amir Shooshtari, Dr. Michael Ohadi

Fabio’s and Xiang’s current research is to take advantage of metal additive manufacturing technology to fabricate Inconel heat exchanger utilizing UMD’s patented manifold-microchannel technology for aerospace application. The 3D printed Inconel 718 heat exchanger prototype has been tested under high temperature conditions (600 C and 4.5 Bar on hot side, 40 C and 1 Bar on cold side). The decent agreement between the experimental and the numerical results demonstrates that the numerical analysis for heat transfer and pressure drop in the heat exchanger can accurately predict the additively manufactured manifold-microchannel heat exchanger’s performance.

Scroll to Top