Thermal design and analysis for high-power-density electronics, power modules, and electric machines

WHAT IT COVERS Thermal design, evaluation, and troubleshooting for hardware that has run out of cooling headroom.

• Single-phase and two-phase cooling architectures: liquid cold plates, manifold microchannels, two-phase immersion cooling, loop heat pipes, PCM-enhanced heat sinks
• Limit and margin analysis: critical heat flux margin, dryout, hot-spot identification, transient response under pulsed or cyclic loads
• CFD (ANSYS Fluent) combined with reduced-order and surrogate modeling (proper orthogonal decomposition with neural networks) when the design loop needs to run faster than full CFD allows
• Experimental validation on our own rigs: modified ASTM D5470 thermal resistance measurement, IR thermography, high-speed imaging, and boiling and condensation test sections
• Non-intrusive acoustic instrumentation for condition monitoring, where an operating system needs to be watched rather than modeled

HOW IT IS DELIVERED A scoping call to define the thermal question, then a written statement of work. Engagements run as either a modeling study, a test campaign, or both. Deliverables are the simulation models or test data themselves, reported with stated assumptions, uncertainty, and validity limits, plus design recommendations and a technical debrief. Most work is executed as a sponsored research agreement through the University of Arkansas; short, well-defined tasks can be handled as fee-for-service.

BEST FIT FOR

• Power electronics and electric machine developers working with SiC or GaN modules, medium-voltage converters, and traction or aerospace motors
• Data center and immersion cooling vendors
• Spacecraft and aerospace thermal control programs
• Any team with a thermal limit they cannot measure, or a design iteration loop that is too slow to explore the space

TRACK RECORD Sponsored research with Google on two-phase cooling limits in porous media and on boiling at subatmospheric pressures (three awards). NASA programs on 3D-printed titanium loop heat pipes for spacecraft radiators and on acoustic partial discharge detection in electric motors. Collaboration with the University of Arkansas Power Group on medium-voltage SiC thermal management. Uncertainty quantification for our ASTM D5470 tester is published (Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, 2025).