Micro-channel heat sinks are used in a wide variety of applications, including microelectronic devices, computers and high-energy-laser mirrors. Due to the high power density that is encountered in these devices (the density of delivered electrical power up to a few kW/cm2) they require efficient cooling as their temperatures must generally not exceed 100 ◦C. In the paper a new design for micro-channel heat sink (MCHS) to be used for cooling laser diode arrays (LDA) is considered. It is made from copper and consisting of 37 micro-channels with length of 9.78 mm, width of 190 μm and depth of 180 μm with the deionized water as a cooling medium. Mathematical and numerical models of the proposed design of the heat sink were developed. A series of thermofluid numerical simulations were performed for various volumetric flow rates of the cooling medium, its inlet temperature and different thermal power released in the laser diode. The results show that the LDA temperature could be decreased from 14 to 17% in comparison with earlier proposed design of the heat sink with the further drop in temperature obtained by applying indium instead of gallium arsenide as the soldering material between the LDA and MCHS interface. Moreover, it was found that the maximum temperature, and therefore the thermal resistance of the considered heat sink, could be decreased by increasing the coolant flow rate.

Development of new or upgrading of existing airplanes requires many different analyses, e.g., thermal, aerodynamical, structural, and safety. Similar studies were performed during re-design of two small aircrafts, which were equipped with new turboprop engines. In this paper thermo-fluid analyses of interactions of new propulsion systems with selected elements of airplane skin were carried out. Commercial software based numerical models were developed. Analyses of heat and fluid flow in the engine bay and nacelle of a single-engine airplane with a power unit in the front part of the fuselage were performed in the first stage. Subsequently, numerical simulations of thermal interactions between the hot exhaust gases, which leave the exhaust system close to the front landing gear, and the bottom part of the fuselage were investigated. Similar studies were carried out for the twin-engine airplane with power units mounted on the wings. In this case thermal interactions between the hot exhaust gases, which were flowing out below the wings, and the wing covers and flaps were studied. Simulations were carried out for different airplane configurations and operating conditions. The aim of these studies was to check if for the assumed airplane skin materials and the initially proposed airplane geometries, the cover destruction due to high temperature is likely. The results of the simulations were used to recommend some modifications of constructions of the considered airplanes.

Heat flow in heterogeneous media with complex microstructure follows tortuous path and therefore determination of temperature distribution in them is a challenging task. Two-scales, micro-macro model of heat conduction with phase change in such media was considered in the paper. A relation between temperature distribution on the microscopic level, i.e., on the level of details of microstructure, and the temperature distribution on the macroscopic level, i.e., on the level where the properties were homogenized and treated as effective, was derived. The expansion applied to this relation allowed to obtain its more simplified, approximate form corresponding to separation of micro- and macro-scales. Then the validity of this model was checked by performing calculations for 2D microstructure of a composite made of two constituents. The range of application of the proposed micro-macro model was considered in transient states of heat conduction both for the case when the phase change in the material is present and when it is absent. Variation of the effective thermal conductivity with time was considered and a criterion was found for which application of the considered model is justified.

The presented results are for the numerical verification of a method devised to identify an unknown spatio-temporal distribution of heat flux that occurs at the surface of a thin aluminum plate, as a result of pulsed laser beam excitation. The presented identification of boundary heat flux function is a part of the newly proposed laser beam profiling method and utilizes artificial neural networks trained on temperature distributions generated with the ANSYS Fluent solver. The paper focuses on the selection of the most effective neural network hyperparameters and compares the results of neural network identification with the Levenberg–Marquardt method used earlier and discussed in previous articles. For the levels of noise measured in physical experiments (0.25–0.5 K), the accuracy of the current parameter estimation method is between 5 and 10%. Design changes that may increase its accuracy are thoroughly discussed.