Won Selected by Department of Defense for Multi-University Initiative Investigating Thermal Energy Technologies

May 2, 2024 - Yoonjin Won, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, was chosen for a multidisciplinary university research initiative (MURI) from the U.S. Department of Defense for her project to improve efficiency of thermal management systems for Navy power and energy applications. Titled “Fundamentals of Machine Learning for Phase Change Heat Transfer (ML4HEAT),” the UC Irvine-led project aims to develop an intelligent framework for liquid-vapor phase change physics that integrates advanced metrology with computer vision and machine learning.

Phase change heat transfer, involving boiling or condensation, has been used for over 100 years for energy and power systems. It is an essential element of modern building systems, transportation, refrigeration and power generation. The physics of phase change heat transfer are incredibly complicated due to their chaotic nature and the multiple physical processes that are present in these systems. The extreme complexity of phase change heat transfer makes it nearly impossible to perform modeling and simulation that can predict phase change flows and be used to design phase change systems.

“With recent advances in computer vision and machine learning, we have an opportunity to overcome these challenges,” explained Won. She said she’s honored to be selected for this prestigious award and excited about the opportunity to contribute to such an important research endeavor alongside a great multidisciplinary team. “This project will build new approaches that use physics-based machine learning methods that can interpret and predict such flows, and enable the design of new systems that are currently impossible to develop using conventional engineering methods.”

The multidisciplinary team will collect high-resolution vision information from phase change flows. By learning physics-based priors, this framework will be generalizable, scalable and explainable, enabling the design of new, higher performing phase change heat transfer systems.

The DOD MURI program is intended to tackle highly complex and cross-disciplinary science and engineering challenges. It supports teams whose members have diverse sets of expertise as well as creative scientific approaches to these problems. At an average award amount of $7.5 million over five years, these competitive grants will support 30 teams located at 73 U.S. academic institutions, subject to satisfactory research progress and the availability of funds.

Won’s multi-university interdisciplinary team includes Aparna Chandramowlishwaran, UCI associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, as well as Jiajun Wu from Stanford University, Nenad Miljkovic and William King from University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and Matteo Bucci from MIT.

– Lori Brandt