Problem Statement: The electronics for BBX2 are sensitive to temperature for data resolution.  The gain and overvoltage of the silicon photomultipliers in the system vary with temperature and if not corrected for can impact image quality.

Overview: I first did rough hand calculations for the heat generation and temperature rise given cooling with ambient air. I had developed a modular mounting system that consisted of 12 SIPMs and their associated boards. Each SIPM had a complementary board with an ASIC generating roughly 1.2 W during a scan. Based on the hand calculations, the ASICSs would raise the ambient temperature in the enclosure significantly and impact the performance of the SiPMs.  I then developed a modular block detector mounting system that incorporated liquid cooling into the detector block.  The materials, sizes, and flow rates were optimized through CFD simulation in SimScale.  I then built a benchtop test to confirm the CFD calculations and compare liquid and air cooling to validate that my initial calculations were accurate.

Key Skills Developed

• CFD simulation

• Optimization based on simulation

• Test Design 

• Hand Calculations for heat generation, CFD sanity check, and risk of condensation.