Park Seung Won, Li Junhui, Weisensee Patricia B
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA.
Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA.
Sci Rep. 2024 Jul 23;14(1):16979. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-67758-4.
Thermal regulators are devices that can adopt either the role of a thermal insulator or a thermal conductor, depending on the thermal input conditions, and play an increasingly important role in thermal management systems. In this study, we developed and tested a new passive thermal regulator design that operates around room temperature and achieves high switching ratios. Our regulator is structurally integer, scalable, orientation-independent, resistant to vibration, and can be easily integrated into existing thermal management solutions. The working principle of the passive regulator is simple yet effective, whereby an aluminum plug attached to a bimetallic strip enters and exists a wedge-shaped gap between two conductors. We demonstrate a switching ratio of ≈ 50 :1 for a fully packaged prototype (≈ 320 (± 200):1 for a non-packaged regulator) operated in the open laboratory environment. Through geometric optimization using numerical simulations, we show that a switching ratio of ≈ 100 :1 can be easily obtained, which can be further increased by increasing the cross-sectional area of the input conductor, hence increasing the ON-state heat transfer rate. The OFF-state thermal performance is much less sensitive to the size of the conductor, making the device highly scalable.
热调节器是一种能根据热输入条件，兼具热绝缘体或热导体功能的装置，在热管理系统中发挥着越来越重要的作用。在本研究中，我们开发并测试了一种新型被动热调节器设计，其在室温附近运行并实现了高开关比。我们的调节器结构完整、可扩展、与方向无关、抗振动，且能轻松集成到现有的热管理解决方案中。被动调节器的工作原理简单而有效，即附着在双金属条上的铝塞进入并离开两个导体之间的楔形间隙。在开放实验室环境中运行的完全封装原型（未封装调节器约为320（±200）:1），我们展示了约50:1的开关比。通过数值模拟进行几何优化，我们表明可以轻松获得约100:1的开关比，通过增加输入导体的横截面积可进一步提高该比值，从而提高导通状态的传热速率。关断状态的热性能对导体尺寸的敏感度要低得多，这使得该装置具有高度可扩展性。
