Advancing Energy and Water Technologies via Micro/Nanoengineered Materials and Machine Learning

Liquid-vapor phase change processes (e.g., boiling, condensation) are ubiquitous phenomena in nature and energy industries such as steam-based power plant, thermal management, and water desalination. However, predicting and enhancing boiling heat transfer performance is notoriously difficult and still largely relies on empirical trial-and-error processes due to the complex nature of the boiling phenomena. Developing viable thermal energy strategies through nanoengineered materials and machine learning approaches will have enormous impact on global energy crisis and climate change. In this talk, I will discuss the machine learning (ML)-assisted models based on convolutional neural networks (CNN) to predict and optimize boiling heat transfer performance on scalable heat transfer surfaces. Furthermore, the development of image processing techniques allows us to extract physical parameters from heat transfer surfaces and to fundamentally understand bubble nucleation dynamics during boiling. These studies provide fundamental insights into the complex physical processes underlying solid-liquid interactions and offer paths to achieving increased efficiency in next generation energy systems. I will end my talk by discussing the recent advancements in water harvesting technologies. 

Dr. Hyeongyun Cha is currently an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University at Buffalo (UB), where he leads the CHA Energy Research Laboratory. His group’s research intersects the multidisciplinary fields of thermos-fluid science, interfacial phenomena, machine learning, and renewable energy. Their work focuses on bringing about efficiency enhancements in various industries including energy (power generation, oil & gas, HVAC&R, renewables), water, transportation, and electronics cooling, by fundamentally altering thermal-fluid-surface interactions. Prof. Cha received his doctoral degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Before joining UB, he was a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).