By Josh Perry, Editor
[email protected]

Penn State mechanical engineering graduate Michael Bichnevicius has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship to continue his work on using additive manufacturing to enhance boiling heat transfer, according to a report from the school.

Michael Bichnevicius works with additive manufactured parts in the ExCCL Lab.
(Erin Cassidy Hendrick/Penn State)

Bichnevicius worked as a researcher in Penn State’s Experimental and Computational Convection Laboratory (ExCCL) and the Heat Transfer and Multiphase Flow Lab. His proposal for the fellowship was entitled, “Boiling Vapor Bubble Dynamics on Rough Additively Manufactured Surfaces.”

The focus of his work is how additive manufacturing techniques can create material surfaces in products, such as heat exchangers, to enhance the heat transfer capability of boiling. If the surfaces are roughly textured, then it promotes bubble formation and increases the heat transfer capability for high heat flux technologies such as computer chips or power plants.

He has co-authored three papers during his undergraduate research and will now pursue his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Learn more about the NSF fellowship program at https://www.nsfgrfp.org.