The competition tasked students with designing, analysing, and optimising an additively manufactured heat sink to cool a constant power module subject to forced convection at two air velocities in a vertical enclosure.

The AeroProMax team from UNNC, with four Aerospace Engineering Year three students, Yang Zhang, Junyuan Jiang, Yiwei Wang, Luying Xia and Dr Yi Nie and Dr Shanshan Long as their supervisors, competing against another 19 entries including the top universities like University of Michigan, Purdue University, and ETH Zurich, impressed with their high performance of heat sink design and their presentation skill.

The team came together through an ANSYS software training session organized by Luying Xia, the Chair of the UNNC Aerospace Society. The trainer of the ANSYS session Dr Yi Nie, later became the supervisor of the team.

The team has started brainstorming since December 2023. Their design, inspired by the nature, featured a honeycomb distribution structure and employed a fractal design that enhances the turbulent intensity of the heat sink, and increases the contact area between the air and the heat sink to improve convection efficiency. With the joint efforts, the performance of the heat sink increased 24% and the design of the model has been improved for 3D printing.

All the semifinalist groups’ designs were printed at GE and then experimentally tested. It is worth mentioning that in the experimental results, the AeroProMax’s final calculated figure of merit (FOM) lists second among all the six groups.

Despite the clash of exam timetables, the team attended the finalist presentation virtually, students found their competition experience excellent.

Facing the fierce competition from graduate students, the team of undergraduate students have self-studied many knowledge about thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, additive manufacturing and heat sink design. The team collaborated well, and managed their project effectively. They also expressed their gratitude to the two supervisors.

The UNNC team looks forward to future competitions. The Faculty of Science and Engineering has also demonstrated excellence in science and engineering education and talent cultivation.