Magnetically Stimulated Flow Patterns Offer Strategy for Heat Transfer Problems

摘要

Sandia National Laboratories researchers Jim Martin and Kyle Solis have what Martin calls "a devil of a problem." They have discovered how to harness magnetic fields to create vigorous, organized fluid flows in particle suspensions. The magnetically stimulated flows offer an alternative when heat transfer is difficult because they overcome natural convection limits. Martin and Solis have even demonstrated a heat transfer valve that could potentially control the temperature of computer processors. The devil is in the details, of course: The problem is that they are not sure how and why the flow patterns occur. Clearly, they say, it is a complex scientific behavior stemming from fundamental phenomena.