A team of students from the Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics (ME-EM) have won the ASME/K-16 and IEEE/EPS Student Heat Sink Design Challenge.
Team members include undergraduate students Gracie Brownlow and Kelsey Brinks, and graduate students Behzad Ahmadi, Masoud Ahmadi and Behnam Ahmadi. They were advised by Sajjad Bigham (ME-EM/ICC-CPS).
According to the ITherm 2022 program, the team competition challenged students to design, analyze and optimize an additively manufactured aluminum heat sink to cool a constant heat flux power electronics module subject to forced convection. The designs were evaluated based on a series of design and manufacturing criteria, and the semifinalist teams tested their heat sinks using the additive manufacturing facilities at GE and state-of-the-art test equipment at the University of Utah.
The organizing committee initially selected eight semifinalist teams, including Michigan Tech. GE then 3D-printed these eight heat sinks, and subsequent tests revealed the four finalist teams to be Michigan Tech, Berlin Institute of Technology, Purdue University and the University of Arkansas.
These four finalist teams were invited to send one student to present their heat sink designs during the 2022 ITherm conference in San Diego, California. Behzad Ahmadi presented on behalf of Michigan Tech. Following the presentations, Michigan Tech was selected as the winner.