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Droplet-structure interactions play a pivotal role in many engineering applications as droplet-based solutions are evolving. This work explores the physical understanding of these interactions through systematic research leading to improvements in thermal management via dropwise condensation (DWC), and breathable protective wearables against chemical aerosols for better thermoregulation. In DWC, the heat transfer rate can be further increased by increasing the nucleation and by optimally ‘refreshing’ the surface via droplet shedding. Softening of surfaces favor the former while having an adverse effect on the latter. This optimization problem is addressed by investigating how mechanical properties of a substrate impact relevant droplet-surface …

Contributors

Phadnis, Akshay, Rykaczewski, Konrad, Wang, Robert, et al.

Created Date

2019

Solar energy has become one of the most popular renewable energy in human’s life because of its abundance and environment friendliness. To achieve high solar energy conversion efficiency, it usually requires surfaces to absorb selectivity within one spectral range of interest and reflect strongly over the rest of the spectrum. An economic method is always desired to fabricate spectrally selective surfaces with improved energy conversion efficiency. Colloidal lithography is a recently emerged way of nanofabrication, which has advantages of low-cost and easy operation. In this thesis, aluminum metasurface structures are proposed based on colloidal lithography method. High Frequency Structure Simulator …

Contributors

Guan, Chuyun, Wang, Liping, Azeredo, Bruno, et al.

Created Date

2019

In nature, it is commonly observed that animals and birds perform movement-based thermoregulation activities to regulate their body temperatures. For example, flapping of elephant ears or plumage fluffing in birds. Taking inspiration from nature and to explore the possibilities of such heat transfer enhancements, augmentation of heat transfer rates induced by the vibration of solid and well as novel flexible pinned heatsinks were studied in this research project. Enhancement of natural convection has always been very important in improving the performance of the cooling mechanisms. In this research, flexible heatsinks were developed and they were characterized based on natural convection …

Contributors

Prabhu, Saurabh, Rykaczewski, Konrad, Phelan, Patrick, et al.

Created Date

2019

Hydrogel polymers have been the subject of many studies, due to their fascinating ability to alternate between being hydrophilic and hydrophobic, upon the application of appropriate stimuli. In particular, thermo-responsive hydrogels such as N-Isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM), which possess a unique lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of 32°C, have been leveraged for membrane-based processes such as using NIPAM as a draw agent for forward osmosis (FO) desalination. The low LCST temperature of NIPAM ensures that fresh water can be recovered, at a modest energy cost as compared to other thermally based desalination processes which require water recovery at higher temperatures. This work …

Contributors

Abdullahi, Adnan None, Phelan, Patrick, Wang, Robert, et al.

Created Date

2019

When air is supplied to a conditioned space, the temperature and humidity of the air often contribute to the comfort and health of the occupants within the space. However, the vapor compression system, which is the standard air conditioning configuration, requires air to reach the dew point for dehumidification to occur, which can decrease system efficiency and longevity in low temperature applications. To improve performance, some systems dehumidify the air before cooling. One common dehumidifier is the desiccant wheel, in which solid desiccant absorbs moisture out of the air while rotating through circular housing. This system improves performance, especially when …

Contributors

Kocher, Jordan, Wang, Robert, Phelan, Patrick, et al.

Created Date

2019

The objective of this dissertation is to study the use of metamaterials as narrow-band and broadband selective absorbers for opto-thermal and solar thermal energy conversion. Narrow-band selective absorbers have applications such as plasmonic sensing and cancer treatment, while one of the main applications of selective metamaterials with broadband absorption is efficiently converting solar energy into heat as solar absorbers. This dissertation first discusses the use of gold nanowires as narrow-band selective metamaterial absorbers. An investigation into plasmonic localized heating indicated that film-coupled gold nanoparticles exhibit tunable selective absorption based on the size of the nanoparticles. By using anodized aluminum oxide …

Contributors

Alshehri, Hassan, Wang, Liping, Phelan, Patrick, et al.

Created Date

2018

Thermodynamic development and balance of plant study is completed for a 30 MW solar thermochemical water splitting process that generates hydrogen gas and electric power. The generalized thermodynamic model includes 23 components and 45 states. Quasi-steady state simulations are completed for design point system sizing, annual performance analysis and sensitivity analysis. Detailed consideration is given to water splitting reaction kinetics with governing equations generalized for use with any redox-active metal oxide material. Specific results for Ceria illustrate particle reduction in two solar receivers for target oxygen partial pressure of 10 Pa and particle temperature of 1773 K at a design …

Contributors

Budama, Vishnu Kumar, Johnson, Nathan, Stechel, Ellen, et al.

Created Date

2018

In recent years, 40% of the total world energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is because of buildings. Out of that 60% of building energy consumption is due to HVAC systems. Under current trends these values will increase in coming years. So, it is important to identify passive cooling or heating technologies to meet this need. The concept of thermal energy storage (TES), as noted by many authors, is a promising way to rectify indoor temperature fluctuations. Due to its high energy density and the use of latent energy, Phase Change Materials (PCMs) are an efficient choice to use as …

Contributors

Prem Anand Jayaprabha, Jyothis Anand, Phelan, Patrick, Wang, Robert, et al.

Created Date

2018

A novel Monte Carlo rejection technique for solving the phonon and electron Boltzmann Transport Equation (BTE), including full many-particle interactions, is presented in this work. This technique has been developed to explicitly model population-dependent scattering within the full-band Cellular Monte Carlo (CMC) framework to simulate electro-thermal transport in semiconductors, while ensuring the conservation of energy and momentum for each scattering event. The scattering algorithm directly solves the many-body problem accounting for the instantaneous distribution of the phonons. The general approach presented is capable of simulating any non-equilibrium phase-space distribution of phonons using the full phonon dispersion without the need of …

Contributors

Sabatti, Flavio Francesco Maria, Saraniti, Marco, Smith, David J, et al.

Created Date

2018

Recently, nanostructured metamaterials have attracted lots of attentions due to its tunable artificial properties. In particular, nanowire/nanohole based metamaterials which are known of the capability of large area fabrication were intensively studied. Most of the studies are only based on the electrical responses of the metamaterials; however, magnetic response, is usually neglected since magnetic material does not exist naturally within the visible or infrared range. For the past few years, artificial magnetic response from nanostructure based metamaterials has been proposed. This reveals the possibility of exciting resonance modes based on magnetic responses in nanowire/nanohole metamaterials which can potentially provide additional …

Contributors

Chang, Jui-Yung, Wang, Liping, Phelan, Patrick, et al.

Created Date

2017