(Ehd) Pumping of Liquid Nitrogen –
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ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: ELECTROHYDRODYNAMICS (EHD) PUMPING OF LIQUID NITROGEN – APPLICATION TO SPOT CRYOGENIC COOLING OF SENSORS AND DETECTORS Mihai Rada, Doctor of Philosophy, 2004 Dissertation directed by: Professor Michael M. Ohadi Department of Mechanical Engineering Superconducting electronics require cryogenic conditions as well as certain conventional electronic applications exhibit better performance at low temperatures. A cryogenic operating environment ensures increased operating speeds and improves the signal-to-noise ratio and the bandwidth of analog devices and sensors, while also ensuring reduced aging effect. Most of these applications require modest power dissipation capabilities while having stricter requirements on the spatial and temporal temperature variations. Controlled surface cooling techniques ensure more stable and uniform temporal and spatial temperature distributions that allow better signal-to-noise ratios for sensors and elimination of hot spots for processors. EHD pumping is a promising technique that could provide pumping and mass flow rate control along the cooled surface. In this work, an ion-drag EHD pump is used to provide the pumping power necessary to ensure the cooling requirements. The present study contributes to two major areas which could provide significant improvement in electronics cooling applications. One direction concerns development of an EHD micropump, which could provide the pumping power for micro-cooling systems capable of providing more efficient and localized cooling. Using a 3M fluid, a micropump with a 50 mm gap between the emitter and collector and a saw-tooth emitter configuration at an applied voltage of about 250 V provided a pumping head of 650 Pa. For a more optimized design a combination of saw tooth emitters and a 3-D solder-bump structure should be used. The other major contribution involves the application, for the first time, of the EHD pumping technique to cryogenic liquids. Successful implementation of these cooling techniques could provide on-demand and on-location pumping power which would allow tight cryogenic temperature control on the cooling surface of sensors, detectors and other cold electronics. Pumping heads of up to 1 Pa with mass flow rates of 0.8 g/s were achieved using liquid nitrogen. Although the pressure head results seem relatively small, the corresponding liquid nitrogen mass flow rate meets the targeted heat removal requirements specific to superconducting sensors and detectors. ELECTROHYDRODYNAMICS (EHD) PUMPING OF LIQUID NITROGEN – APPLICATION TO SPOT CRYOGENIC COOLING OF SENSORS AND DETECTORS by Mihai Rada Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Maryland at College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2004 Advisory Committee: Professor Michael M. Ohadi, Chair/Advisor Associate Professor Jungho Kim Professor Marino di Marzo Associate Professor Gary Pertmer Assistant Professor Elisabeth Smela ã Copyright by Mihai Rada 2004 DEDICATION To my wonderful parents and to my beautiful wife with love ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my indebtedness to my advisor, Dr. Michael Ohadi, for the unique opportunities he offered me, for his guidance, and support throughout the course of my studies. I would also like to thank Dr. Jeff Darabi, for his invaluable assistance and interaction during the EHD micropumping work and to Mario Martins and Jeff Didion from NASA GSFC for their valuable support and assistance during the experimental work performed on liquid nitrogen EHD pumping. My thanks are due to the members of the advisory committee, Dr. Jungho Kim, Dr. Marino di Marzo, Dr. Gary Pertmer, and Dr. Elisabeth Smela for providing constructive suggestions and guidance. I wish to thank my good friends and colleagues from Small and Smart Thermal Systems Laboratory. I would like to acknowledge the support of the TRW Corp. which produced the micropumping devices presented in this work and especially thank Dr. John Lawler. I would like to thank Bernie LaFrance and Tony McNair for their invaluable work and ideas put in building the EHD meso-pump loop. I was honored to receive the friendship of the Thermal Engineering Branch group at NASA GSFC where during the years 2001-2002 I performed my cryogenic experimental work. My thanks go to Jim Dye, Pat Gonzalez, Dan Butler, George and Mark, Alice and Ron Rector. I am also indebted to Alexandru Bologa with whom I had very fruitful discussions. A special mention for my father whose dreams finally came true. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION..................................................................................... 1 1.1 BACKGROUND........................................................................................................1 1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES........................................................................................2 1.2.1 Microscale EHD Pumping ................................................................................3 1.2.2 Meso-scale Cryogenic EHD Pumping................................................................4 1.3 SCOPE .................................................................................................................4 CHAPTER 2 FUNDAMENTALS OF ION-DRAG ELECTROHYDRODYNAMIC (EHD) PUMPING.................................................................................... 6 2.1 INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................6 2.2 ION-DRAG EHD PUMPING FUNDAMENTALS.......................................................6 2.2.1 Parallel Plane Geometry .................................................................................11 2.2.2 Asymmetric Geometry ...................................................................................14 2.2.3 Summary.......................................................................................................16 2.3 LITERATURE REVIEW..........................................................................................16 2.3.1 Meso-scale EHD Pumping ..............................................................................16 2.3.2 Microscale EHD Pumping ..............................................................................22 2.4 ION-DRAG EHD PUMPING RESULTS OVERVIEW ..............................................23 CHAPTER 3 FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF APPLYING AN ELECTRIC FIELD TO DIELECTRIC LIQUIDS................................... 27 3.1 INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................27 3.2 CHARGE GENERATION IN LIQUIDS....................................................................28 3.2.1 Liquid/Metal Interface Phenomena..................................................................30 3.2.2 Low Electric Field Effects ..............................................................................31 3.2.3 Charge Mobility .............................................................................................34 3.2.4 High Electric Field Effects..............................................................................36 3.3 LIQUID STATE ELECTRONICS OF CRYOGENIC LIQUIDS.................................36 3.4 HIGH FIELD PHENOMENA IN CRYOGENIC LIQUIDS.........................................40 3.4.1 Cryogenic Liquids Breakdown........................................................................45 3.4.2 Other Electrical Phenomena Occurring in Cryogenic Liquids ............................49 3.5 SUMMARY.............................................................................................................51 CHAPTER 4 DESIGN, FABRICATION AND TESTING OF THE EHD ION-DRAG MICROPUMP ....................................................................................... 55 4.1 INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................55 4.2 MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS AND MICROFLUIDICS...................56 4.3 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND............................................................................57 4.3 DESCRIPTION OF THE MICROPUMP DEVICE.....................................................61 4.3.1 Design...........................................................................................................61 4.3.2 Microfabrication ............................................................................................63 4.4 EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP ......................................................................................64 4.4.1 The Working Fluid .........................................................................................65 4.4.2 Device Packaging...........................................................................................65 4.4.3 The EHD Power Supply .................................................................................66 4.5 EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE.............................................................................66 4.6 DATA REDUCTION ...............................................................................................66 4.7 UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS ..................................................................................67 4.8 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ................................................................................67 iv 4.9 SUMMARY.............................................................................................................71 4.10 PRESENT WORK