Dr. Xinpeng Zhao
Assistant Research Scientist
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park
Email: xzhao@umd.edu
Education Background
Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, 2020
M.S., Engineering Thermophysics, Xi'an Jiaotong University, 2015
B.S., Aerospace Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 2012
Research Interests
My research aim is to investigate fundamental heat transfer mechanisms from the atom to the system scale, using this knowledge to develop next-generation materials and systems for energy and sustainability, with a focus on the followings:
1-Energy-Efficient Buildings: Buildings are responsible for about 40% of energy use and 38% of CO2 emissions, with HVAC systems consuming half of this energy. Developing energy-efficient building materials can significantly reduce these emissions by lowering heating and cooling demands.
Thermal insulation materials
Passive radiative cooling
Dynamic windows
2-Advanced Manufacturing: Unlike traditional heating, the Ultrafast High-temperature Sintering (UHS) technique enables rapid heating (10^3-10^4 °C/min) and cooling (10^4 °C/min) along with high sintering temperatures (3000 °C). This drives extreme and non-equilibrium materials synthesis and ceramic sintering.
Materials discovery via UHS
Ceramics for extreme thermal management
3-Power-Intensive Devices: High-power devices/systems like chips, smartphones, data centers, batteries, and electric cars experience high localized heat fluxes up to tens of kW/cm2 due to self-heating. Efficient heat dissipation can significantly improve efficiency and operational stability and diminish safety issues (e.g., fires in batteries).
Thermal behavior modeling
Thermal control technologies
Thermal management materials