Cold Plate Optimization for Next-Gen AI Chips

  • Project Year: 2025-26
  • Departments Represented: MEng
  • Industry/Track: Artificial Intellegence, Machine Learning, and Data Science

This capstone project develops an automated design framework for microchannel cold plates using topology optimization to improve thermal management in high-power electronics. By leveraging chip heat maps as inputs, the system generates optimized cooling channel geometries that outperform traditional straight-channel designs. The approach combines a coupled CFD and thermal solver with adjoint sensitivity analysis and MMA optimization to efficiently handle large-scale design variables. Additionally, the project incorporates realistic constraints by optimizing under fixed flow rate conditions while balancing thermal performance and pressure drop. Overall, the solution enables faster, more effective cooling design for modern data centers and high-performance computing systems.

  • Advisor(s): Azita Soleymani
  • Team: Carlos Goni Gil [ME] Ting-Yu Wan [ME] Peter Tcherkezian [ME] Lucas Ehl [ME]