| The reported research focuses on the heat transfer and thermodynamics phenomena related to the geometric optimization of heat transfer devices.;Chapter 1 describes several fundamental tradeoffs that govern the optimization of cooling techniques for heat generating electronic devices. It is shown that in forced air cooling above room temperature the fan power requirement is minimum when the heat transfer contact area is of the order of 10;Chapter 2 is an experimental, numerical and theoretical study of the heat transfer between a pin-finned plate exposed to impinging flow. It is demonstrated experimentally that the thermal conductance between the plate and the air stream can be maximized by selecting the fin-to-fin spacing. A simplified numerical model is used to generate optimal spacing and maximum heat transfer data for various configurations. Finally, the behavior of the optimal spacing data is explained and correlated theoretically.;Chapters 3 and 4 report the results of an experimental and numerical study of the optimal geometric arrangement of staggered parallel plates in a fixed volume with forced and natural convection heat transfer. The geometric arrangements were varied systematically. In the concluding part of the chapters, the optimal spacing and heat transfer rate results are correlated based on the theoretical method of intersecting the two asymptotes (small spacing, large spacing).;Chapter 5 reports the fundamental problem of how to cool a heat generating volume by using a point heat sink and a finite amount of high-conductivity material that can be distributed through the volume. The solution is constructed by covering the volume with a sequence of building blocks, which proceeds toward larger sizes. The main conclusion is that the main structure, working mechanism and the minimum resistance of the heat-tree network can be obtained deterministically.;Chapter 6 reports the solution of the kinematics problem of minimizing the time of travel between a volume and one point. The volume-to-point path that results is a tree network. A single design principle--geometric optimization of volume-to-point access--determines all the features of the tree network. |
