An efficient plate heater with uniform surface temperature engineered with effective thermal materials

Abstract

Extended from its electromagnetic counterpart, transformation thermodynamics applied to thermal conduction equations can map a virtual geometry into a physical thermal medium, realizing the manipulation of heat flux with almost arbitrarily desired diffusion paths, which provides unprecedented opportunities to create thermal devices unconceivable or deemed impossible before. In this work we employ this technique to design an efficient plate heater that can transiently achieve a large surface of uniform temperature powered by a small thermal source. As opposed to the traditional approach of relying on the deployment of a resistor network, our approach fully takes advantage of an advanced functional material system to guide the heat flux to achieve the desired temperature heating profile. A different set of material parameters for the transformed device has been developed, offering the parametric freedom for practical applications. As a proof of concept, the proposed devices are implemented with engineered thermal materials and show desired heating behaviors consistent with numerical simulations. Unique applications for these devices can be envisioned where stringent temperature uniformity and a compact heat source are both demanded.