Background

The Advanced heat Exchangers / Electronics Cooling Consortia was established in 1993 with four founding members. It has since grown to 15 members, including industry, research institutions, and government agencies.

Our involvement with active heat transfer augmentation techniques (particularly the EHD method) for the past twelve years has resulted in a team of faculty members, graduate students, and research engineers and scientists with diverse expertise in ElectroHydroDynamics, heat transfer and design/instrumentation. The consortia has established the technical know-how and the knowledge base critical to successful implementation of emerging technologies in practical applications.

The AHX/EC group in recent years has introduced innovative electrode designs and methodologies that have led to a reduction of an order of magnitude in the required voltage for certain EHD applications. The group has filed for several patents, some of which have been already issued. EHD is now receiving substantial attention from the international technical community. It is now realistic to envision smart, variable-capacity heat exchangers that may soon be introduced in commercial products.