NATCHITOCHES – A Northwestern State University student majoring in Electronics Engineering Technology participated in a Texas A&M College of Engineering’s Research Experience Undergraduate program this summer. Brett Brady of Lockport, a junior, was one of 60 students accepted from 500 applicants for the program.
For his main project, Brady developed a temperature regulator system that adjusted voltage and current to maintain gallium in a liquid state, rather than its solid room temperature state. He studied the gallium’s thermal management properties, such as melting point and thermal conductivity, as a phase change material (PCM) in power electronic applications. Specifically, he researched liquid gallium-based metals (LGBM) for passive cooling of power electronics. The goal was to integrate liquid gallium into a copper heat sink by analyzing how it interacts with various metal substrates commonly used in electronics, such as gold, copper and nickel, and evaluate their coating and intermetallic formation capabilities.
Brady presented his work at Texas A&M’s Zachry Engineering Education Complex. Without the aid of a brochure, he collaborated with the materials science engineering department under the guidance of Patrick Shamberger, Ph.D., and with the support of graduate assistant Lucas Oelkers. During the process, he acquired advanced skills in thermo and fluid dynamics, materials engineering fundamentals, data analysis, and MATLAB coding for complex graphing. His tasks included writing a research paper and creating a poster.
Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) is a National Science Foundation-funded program hosted by universities across the nation to encourage undergraduate participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) research. The experience enables grant-funded REU students, who receive both a stipend and housing for the duration of the program, to experience real-world scientific investigations under the guidance of a faculty mentor.
Information on NSU’s Department of Engineering Technology is available at https://www.nsula.edu/engrtech/.
