Author: Grant Resler | Major: Mechanical Engineering | Semester: Fall 2024

Grant with Test Facility

Hello, my name is Grant Resler. I am an honors mechanical engineering student. I have been working with Dr. Han Hu from the mechanical engineering department in the Nano Energy and Data Driven Discovery Laboratory since the fall of 2022. My research for the fall of 2024 has been on optimizing air-cooled heat sinks for aerospace applications. Upon graduating from the University of Arkansas, I will work for Walmart on their grocery supply chain emerging technology team. On that team, I will be focusing on designing, building, and testing new technologies for the grocery supply. The new technologies will allow the stores to get their products sooner and at a higher quality; this means that the consumer will have fresher and better goods to eat.

My project with Dr. Hu has involved designing and fabricating an air-cooled heat sink test facility. The test facility is a wind tunnel about three feet long. It features five components that serve different purposes. First, the settling chamber, which straightens out the air and cuts down on the swirling that the air is naturally doing in the ambient air. Second, the contraction cone, its job is to speed up the air and it also further cuts down on the swirling of the air. Third, the test section, this is the part of the test facility where heat sinks can be tested. There are instruments that measure the pressures and temperatures on and around the heat sink. Fourth, is the diffuser, its purpose is to slow down the air and allow the air to be pulled out of the test facility. The last part of the test facility is the fan. The fan’s job is to control the velocity of the air as it goes through the test facility. The fan can be used at different speeds which allows for more tests to take place. This semester I focused on getting the test facility operational and began testing different heat sink geometries. Testing different heat sink geometries and validating my findings has been critical as my future research will begin creating new optimized geometries. Optimizing heat sink geometries is important, especially in the face of artificial intelligence as more power is needed to keep up with demand, there has been an added need for better cooling for devices. This is where new cooling geometries can be experimented with to further increase efficiency. This semester, I faced many setbacks when it came to testing. I had electrical issues, data collection issues, and software issues that caused significant setbacks in my progress. I was very fortunate to have a great team of students around me who I could ask questions to. The PHD students were able to help me work through the issues and deliver results. They have been willing to share their experience with me and show me how they have worked though their problems which has given me insight in how to work though my hardware issues. They have also been willing to sit down with me and work though my code that was causing me issues. I am also extremely grateful for Dr. Hu who has been extremely valuable in helping me understand the data that I have been collecting and pointing me on the right path.