{"id":22250,"date":"2017-10-06T19:57:22","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T23:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=22250"},"modified":"2019-03-12T12:15:51","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T16:15:51","slug":"ucla-cooling-system-mobile-electronics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/ucla-cooling-system-mobile-electronics\/","title":{"rendered":"UCLA Researchers Create \u2018Personalized Cooling System\u2019 for Mobile Electronics"},"content":{"rendered":"

A team of researchers from <\/span>the <\/span>UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science<\/span><\/a> and SRI International, an independent, nonprofit research center, have created a <\/span>thin flexible device<\/span><\/a> that functions as a cooling mechanism to prevent overheating in mobile electronics. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is the first demonstration of a physical object that can change a material\u2019s temperature after applying an electric field to it — an occurrence known as the <\/span>electrocaloric effect<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Because vapor compression, the process that cools larger devices such as refrigerators and air conditioners, is too large for devices like mobile phones, engineers have long struggled how to prevent smaller devices from overheating. That is what motivated the study\u2019s lead investigator, UCLA professor of materials science and engineering<\/span> Qibing Pei<\/span><\/a>, to devise \u201ca personalized cooling system,\u201d as he phrased it in a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

The thin, flexible design of the polymer film makes it possible for the device to adapt to mobile electronics with complex designs or surfaces that move, and the polymer film itself allows the transfer of heat from the overheated device to the mechanism by switching electric voltage on and off, allowing the two devices to alternate contact. This means that the cooling pad not only prevents a mobile phone or laptop from overheating after extended use, but it can do so in an energy-efficient way. <\/span><\/p>\n

This device could have other uses as well. It \u201ccould keep a person comfortable in a hot office and thus lower the electricity consumption for building air conditioning,\u201d said Pei in a statement. \u201cOr it could be placed in a shoe insole or in a hat to keep a runner comfortable in the hot Southern California sun. It\u2019s like a personal air conditioner.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, the device could be used to treat injuries and aid firefighters and scientists by reducing thermal noise in thermographic cameras or night-vision glasses.<\/span><\/p>\n

The researchers do not have a definite timeframe yet for making this cooling device ready for commercial purposes. \u201cThe technology is at early stage of development, and we are working on transitioning into product developments,\u201d said Pei. But with \u201cunlimited resources,\u201d Pei estimates that they could be in the product development stage in \u201c2-3 years\u201d time. <\/span><\/p>\n

The study also includes UCLA postdoctoral scholar Rujun Ma and doctoral student Ziyang Zhang from Pei\u2019s research group as lead authors, UCLA graduate student Kwing Tong, SRI research engineer David Huber, and UCLA professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering Yongho Sungtaek Ju.<\/span><\/p>\n

The researchers have applied for a patent for the device with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two U.S. governmental agencies — the Department of Energy\u2019s <\/span>Advanced Research Projects Agency\u2013Energy<\/span><\/a> and the <\/span>Air Force Office of Scientific Research<\/span><\/a> — supported this research.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A team of researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and SRI International, an independent, nonprofit research center, have created a thin flexible device that functions as a cooling mechanism to prevent overheating in mobile electronics. This is the first demonstration of a physical object that can change a material\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":22305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[626,232,229,485],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-technology","category-lead-stories","category-university-of-california-los-angeles"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/flex_cooing_strip.jpg",830,533,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/flex_cooing_strip-224x144.jpg",224,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/flex_cooing_strip-300x193.jpg",300,193,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/flex_cooing_strip.jpg",830,533,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/flex_cooing_strip.jpg",830,533,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/flex_cooing_strip.jpg",830,533,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/flex_cooing_strip.jpg",830,533,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Gillian Madans","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/gillian-madans\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"A team of researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and SRI International, an independent, nonprofit research center, have created a thin flexible device that functions as a cooling mechanism to prevent overheating in mobile electronics. This is the first demonstration of a physical object that can change a material\u2019s…","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/flex_cooing_strip.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}