Fundamental Mechanisms to Applications of Phase Change Heat Transfer

This second Gordon Conference (GRC) on "Micro and Nanoscale Phase Change Heat Transfer" will focus on understanding the fundamental mechanisms for heat transfer enhancement during phase change processes. These insights are essential for applications ranging form electronics cooling, water desalination, energy harvesting and conversion, anti-icing, among many others. Recent advancements in experimental tools, predictive modeling capabilities, and fabrication techniques, have enabled opportunities to address some of the pressing questions of phase change processes raised in the community. This GRC will discuss start-of-the-art physical understanding of liquid-vapor-solid phase transitions and how various surface coatings, structures, and materials can be used to manipulate these processes to improve heat transfer performance. Yet, many challenges toward understanding and control of these processes remain, requiring active discussions within a multi-disciplinary community consisting of researchers in heat transfer, fluid mechanics, computational science, physics chemistry, material science, and interfacial science, among others.

This GRC will bridge this gap between heat transfer experts with others from important relevant disciplines. In addition, the significant time allotted for discussions within the GRC structure will foster collaborations amongst diverse researchers to rapidly accelerate understanding and provide a unified knowledge base. Young and established researchers in the field alike will be encouraged to participate in the talks and poster sessions, which will enhance the diversity and intellectual capacity.