Electrohydrodynamic Microfabricated Ionic Wind Pumps for Electronics Cooling Applications

This work demonstrates an innovative microfabricated air cooling technology that employs an electrohydrodynamic (EHD) corona discharge or ionic wind pump that has the potential to meet industry requirements as a next generation solution for thermal management applications. A single ionic wind pump element consists of two parallel collecting electrodes between which a single emitting tip is positioned. A grid structure on the collector electrodes enhances the overall heat transfer coefficient and facilitates an IC compatible and batch process. The main purpose of the work presented here is thus to investigate whether an optimized ionic wind pump employed in an array configuration might exhibit performance comparable to a conventional CPU fan. The manufacturing procedure developed for the device uses a glass wafer, a single mask-based photolithography process, a low cost copper-based electroplating method, and explores the effect of employing a palladium coating on the device. Various design configurations and optimization processes were explored and modeled computationally to investigate their influence on the cooling phenomenon. The optimized single element device provides a convection heat transfer coefficient of up to 3200 W/m2-K and a COP of up to 46.7 (a maximum COP of 51.5 exhibited by the 6-element array) exhibiting an overall area of 5.35 mm x 3.61 mm, an emitter-to-collector gap of 500 ¿¿m, and an emitter radius curvature of 12.5 ¿¿m. When compared with other ionic wind pumps, the device developed for this work is superior in terms of heat transfer coefficient and COP. However, the overall performance of the array does not compare favorably to a conventional CPU fan except in terms of COP. Additionally, the lifetime experiments conducted demonstrate that additional work may be required to extend the operation of the device, and some form of non-porous coating may be required to protect the underlying copper material. Nonetheless, the device described herein exhibits a flexible and small form factor, low noise generation, high efficiency, large heat removal over a small dimension, relatively simple technology, high reliability (no moving parts), lower power consumptions, and low cost; these are characteristics required by the semiconductor industry for next generation thermal management solutions.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

EECS - Electrical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Ongkodjojo Ong, Andojo

Contributors dc:contributor

• Abramson, Alexis

• Theoretical Physics
• Design
• Electrical Engineering
• Electromagnetics
• Energy
• Engineering
• Experiments
• Fluid Dynamics
• Materials Science
• Mechanical Engineering
• Physics
• Plasma Physics
• Solid State Physics
• Systems Design
• ionic wind pumps
• thermal management
• MEMS
• electronics cooling
• corona discharge
• electrohydrodynamics
• heat transfer coefficients
• coefficient of performance (COP)
• FEM/FEA
• optimization
• lifetime test
• microfabrication process

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1354638816

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:case1354638816