UNA’s LeoSink Team Finished 4th in International Design Competition
Aug. 27, 2024
Michelle R. Eubanks , UNA, at meubanks@meili25.com, 256.765.4392
FLORENCE, AL – A team of University of North Alabama Students recently placed fourth in the 2024 ASME K-16/IEEE EPS Heat Sink Design Competition. The team, led by Dr. Sayeed Shohag, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering and Industrial Professions, consists of graduate students from UNA’s Applied Manufacturing Engineering program.
“The team started brainstorming their ideas based on the competition’s guidelines published last year,” said Dr. Shohag. “Each team member came up with novel design ideas, which were discussed in meetings. After several iterations, the top two ideas were selected for the final design. These designs were meticulously checked to ensure they met competition guidelines, including additive manufacturability, heat transfer efficiency, and overall quality of work. Computer simulations were then performed on the top two heat sink designs, and the one demonstrating the highest figure of merit was selected for the final submission.”
The 2024 ASME K-16/IEEE EPS Heat Sink Design Competition attracts teams from around the world, including top research institutions. Seven teams, including UNA’s LeoSink team, advanced to the semi-finals. During this stage, the GE Additive Manufacturing engineering team organized a workshop and provided feedback on each design. The LeoSink team worked diligently to modify the design based on the engineers’ suggestions. The designed heat sink was then metal 3D printed in stainless steel at the GE Additive Manufacturing facility and experimentally tested at the University of Southern Denmark.
A heat sink is a device that transfers the heat generated by an electronic or mechanical device to a fluid medium, often air or a liquid coolant, where it is dissipated away from the device. The student teams design, analyze, and optimize and additively manufactured heat sink to cool a constant power module subject to forced convection at two air velocities in a vertical enclosure.
About The University of North Alabama
The University of North Alabama is an accredited, comprehensive regional state university offering undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degree programs through the colleges of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering; the Sanders College of Business and Technology; Education and Human Sciences; and the Anderson College of Nursing and Health Professions. Occupying a 130-acre campus in a residential section of Florence, Alabama, UNA is located within a four-city area that also includes Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia. UNA Athletics, a renowned collegiate athletics program with seven (7) Division II National Championships, is now a proud member of NCAA Division I as part of the Atlantic Sun and United Athletic conferences. The University of North Alabama is an equal opportunity institution and does not discriminate in the admission policy on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, disability, age, or national origin. For more: meili25.com and meili25.com/unaworks/.