Lauren Westfall

Author: Lauren Westfall | Major: Mechanical Engineering | Semester: Fall 2022

My name is Lauren Westfall. I am a sophomore in the college of engineering getting my degree in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in Aerospace. I am working on my research in the NED3 research lab under my mentor in the Mechanical Engineering department, Dr. Han Hu. This past semester I have focused my research on learning new technology in order to develop more effective designs of heatsinks. In the following semester I hope to have my designs manufactured and tested by other lab members.

To understand how I got started, I will take you back to summer of 2022. I got an email from my now mentor, asking me if I would like to join his lab. I said yes and he invited me to the lab to meet the team and learn about the different projects they were working on. I had an interest in the heat flow projects and let my mentor know that I would like to be a part of their research projects. I got assigned to the heat transfer teams by my mentor and he helped me figure out how I could add to their research. I was tasked with designing a heat sink that is better at dissipating heat than the standard heat sink that is typically used.

Heat sinks are used in everyday devices such as computers and HVAC systems. They are the behind the scenes cooling devices that help control the machines temperature. To control the temperature, they sit on whatever component that is creating heat, and dissipate as much of that heat into the air around the device. Heat sinks typically are designed in a symmetrical grid that sits atop a solid plate that is glued to the hot part of the machine.

In my research I worked on learning a software called nTopology. This software allows me to optimize the heatsink to remove the most material which will reduce cost and time to manufacture. I spent a lot of my semester learning this software and I have not been able to use it on my designs yet. I struggled to create the complex designs I wanted to create in Solid Works because I had not learned that software yet. Throughout the semester I learned Solid Works through my CAD class and it allowed me to make some more simple designs of heatsinks.

I have had some help from my fellow teammates in creating my designs and learning the new software. My mentor has aided in giving me the resources and facilities to design my heatsinks. He has also provided me with information on my topic to help get me started in my first research project ever.

I have plans for next semester to create a heatsink based off of the shape of a truncated octahedron. This shape connects to itself well allowing the shape to be repeated multiple times on the base of the heatsink. This design also allows for adequate airflow through the heatsink as well as a high surface area for the air to reach the metal and cool it.