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ASME K-16 coordinates with IEEE ITherm to hold an annual student design competition. Each year a team of K-16 member develops the competition guidelines, reviews student submissions, and evaluates the best designs experimentally. We support students to travel to the ITherm conference and present their work through financial sponsorship and require testing support and supplies for the experimental evaluation. If you are interested in joining the organizing team or supporting the competition through financial or in-kind testing/manufacturing sponsorship, please email us at asmeheatsinkchallenge@gmail.com and asme.gr.k16@gmail.com.
2025-2026 Cold Plate Student Design Competition
2025-2026 Cold Plate Student Design Competition
For this competition, students will design, analyze, and optimize an additively manufactured cold plate to cool a computer chip via forced convection liquid cooling. Student teams will first design their cold plates and analyze them with a computational tool. Then, they will write a short white paper analyzing their designs and documenting the design process (due Jan 12, 2026).
Student teams that have the highest predicted performance and most creative designs will have their designs by Fabric8Labs for experimental testing in the Spring.
Based on the results, representatives from the best-performing teams will be invited to present their work at the IEEE ITherm conference in May, where a winner will be selected based on evaluation from a panel of experts.
This file contains the complete guidelines and rules for the competition.
Fill out this survey to receive updates about the competition.
This .step assembly file contains the components of the testing system. Your simulated design must utilize the flow path geometry specified in the CAD files for the manifold and baseplate designs, without modifying any dimensions. Only the fin plate region should be adjusted in your designs to meet the design goals.
Brief Overview of the Competition Guidelines
Brief Overview of the Competition Guidelines
Flow Configuration
Flow Configuration
This year, the manifold has a split flow configuration entering from the top center of the chip and flowing laterally along the chip to the outlet paths.
Coolant Fluid: PEG-25
Coolant Flow Rate: 1.2 lpm
Inlet Temperature: 30°C
Ambient Temperature: 20°C
TTV-Cold Plate TIM Resistance: 0.03 cm²K/W
Thermal Test Vehicle
Thermal Test Vehicle
The cold plate will be integrated with a Thermal Engineering Associates, Inc. (TEA) Thermal Test Vehicle at the Purdue Applied Research Institute.
For the competition, the chip will have three heated zones:
Zone H (center row): 400 W
Zone BG1 (top row): 200 W
Zone BG2 (bottom row): 200 W
Design Objectives
Design Objectives
Maximize the following Figure of Merit (FoM) based on the effective thermal resistance and pressure drop at the specified flow rate (1.2 lpm):
where the effective maximum thermal resistance is Rth,max =(max(Tchip)-Tinlet)/qtotal and the pressure drop is ΔP=Poutlet-Pinlet across the manifold inlet and outlet.
For the white paper, each team must determine Rbaseline and ΔPbaseline from a simulation using the provided baseline cold plate geometry following the same analysis as their design.
White Paper & Design Submission Requirements
White Paper & Design Submission Requirements
Each team must submit a registration form and upload the following files to BOX by the white paper deadline (Jan 12, 2026 at 11:59 pm US Eastern Time):
White paper (PDF) following the provided template (see website)
CAD Files (STEP format required):
Base + Fin Plate Part File: Your designed fin plate, including the baseplate
Assembly: Complete assembly file or set of files used for your simulations
Final Simulation Files (any appropriate program): Upload a single zip file including a representative simulation of your final design configuration, including your calculated results. Make sure the file includes all the information to be opened on another computer. For example, in ANSYS, make sure to use the Export function rather than just sharing a saved file.
Competition Timeline
Competition Timeline
October 2, 2025: Guidelines Released
Early November (anticipated): Webinar on Thermo-Fluid Modeling from ANSYS
Jan 12, 2026: White Paper and Design File Submission Deadline (11:59 pm US Eastern Time)
Mid-February 2026: White paper evaluations completed and Semi-Finalists notified
February - March 2026: Design modifications requested (if needed) and printing by Fabric8Labs
March - April 2026: Experimental Evaluation
April 2026: Finalists Announced
May 26 - 30, 2026: Final Competition at IEEE ITherm 2026 (Orlando, FL)
ANSYS Software Access
ANSYS Software Access
If you need access to simulation software for this competition, ANSYS has graciously agreed to donate licenses to student teams without the node limitations of the free student version of their software.
To request licenses, one student per team should request access using this form: https://ansysinc.formstack.com/forms/partner. Please provide the following information in response to the questions about the competition.
Select your Partner Type: Student Teams
Student Team Type: Other
Please mention the name of competition(s) in which your team will be participating (include the year of participation): ASME K-16 / IEEE ITherm Student Cold Plate Design Competition
Sponsors
Sponsors
Sponsors make this competition possible through both monetary and in-kind support. If you are interested in supporting the competition, please email us at asmeheatsinkchallenge@gmail.com.
Print Sponsor
Testing Sponsor
Testing Sponsor
Simulation Sponsor
Organizing Team
Organizing Team
Thanks to all the people who made this competition possible, including:
Amy Marconnet (Purdue)
Lang Yuan (Oracle)
Han Hu (U. of Arkansas)
Tianli Feng (U. of Utah)
Vish Ganesan (UIUC)
Purdue Applied Research Lab (PARI): John Holaday and Gabe Velarde
S-PACK Lab: Tiwei Wei (UCLA), Akshat Patel, Yunchun Yang, and Ketankumar Yogi
Fabric8Labs: Ian Winfield, Tanner Immonen, Gautam Gupta, Mike Matthew, and Jim Golden
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