News Archives - March 2008

Rajit Gadh awarded William Mong Visiting Research Fellowship
March 25, 2008

Professor Rajit Gadh

The William M.W. Mong Engineering Research Fund Committee of Management has approved that MAE Professor Rajit Gadh be awarded the William Mong Visiting Research Fellowship in Engineering. Prof. Gadh will visit The University of Hong Kong for research collaboration with Dr. G.Q. Huang for two weeks during the period from July to August 2008.

Y. Sungtaek Ju's team receives multi-million dollar DARPA award to conduct electronics cooling research
March 17, 2008

Professor Y. Sungtaek Ju

A team of UCLA researchers led by Professor Sungtaek Ju recently received a major multi-million dollar award from DARPA to conduct innovative research and development (R&D) research in the area of electronics cooling. Other participants include Professor Ivan Catton (MAE) and Professor Bruce Dunn (MSE) from UCLA, Professor Massoud Kaviany from the University of Michigan, and engineers from Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc.

As electronic system technology advances, there has been increasing pressure on the thermal engineering and heat rejection technologies used. Despite efforts to achieve dramatic reductions in power consumption in specific electronic devices, the need for performance inevitably leads to operation of most electronic systems at the limits of the available thermal management technology.

The overall goal of the new research program is the creation of a thin, lightweight substrate dubbed thermal ground planes (TGPs) with the thermal conductivity at least 100X higher than those of common copper alloy substrates used in these applications. The team will develop bio-inspired multiscale composite wick structures for advanced heat pipes and novel composites whose coefficients of thermal expansion are precisely matched to those of semiconductor substrates, such as Si, SiC, and GaAs.

By working with a premier heat pipe manufacturing company, the UCLA-led team will also rapidly transition breakthrough fundamental research into commercial technology. The new technology will enable a new generation of high-performance, integrated systems to operate at high power density without problems from temperature gradients, increased weight, or added complexity. TGPs will be particularly important for enhancing existing systems that are highly constrained in size and weight, including air-borne electronic radar arrays and other avionics.

Greg Carman’s and Chia-Ming (Gavin) Chang’s paper selected as ASME’s best materials paper for 2007
March 11, 2008

Professor Greg Carman	Chia-Ming Chang

Prof. Greg Carman’s and postdoctoral student Chia-Ming (Gavin) Chang’s paper received the best paper award in materials for 2007 from the Adaptive Structures and Material Systems Committee of the Aerospace Division of ASME.  This particular best paper award selects the best paper published in either a journal or conference proceedings during a given year.  Prof. Carman has won this award previously.

The paper is "Experimental evidence of end effects in magneto-electric laminate composites,” Journal of Applied Physics, V. 102, issue 12, Article Number: 124901, 2007, http://link.aip.org/link/?JAPIAU/102/124901/1.