team photo

Figure 1
project photo


Team 5

Team Members

Faculty Advisor

Christopher Lopez
Muhammad Shahbaz
Jared Nye
Yusuf Soliman

Professor Sung Yeul Park

Sponsor

Collins Aerospace

sponsored by
sponsor logo

Team 2114’s project is a joint effort between the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering teams. Our main goal is to observe any differences gallium nitride (GaN) transistors exhibit in a DC/DC converter compared to a converter using a silicon (Si) transistor. Our research allowed us to predict that GaN-based devices will perform with higher efficiency and less power dissipation than Si-based devices. Our goal is to prove this in the laboratory using experimental results. These experimental results will provide our sponsor, Collins Aerospace, with information to aid them in their transition of using GaN transistors rather than Si transistors for aerospace applications, particularly those that require DC/DC converters. The challenges facing our Electrical team were designing a PCB board based on GaN System’s GS61008P-EVBHF board and reporting all learnings gained from the design as well as the design files back to the sponsors. Then we were to send our design files to a PCB manufacturer to have our board fabricated and assembled. Another challenge we were assigned was testing the original GS61008P-EVBHF board with our custom PCB board and reporting any differences in performance or measurements that were discovered. One challenge facing our Mechanical team was taking pictures with a thermal imaging camera of the GS61008P-EVBHF and custom PCB board and reporting back all measurements and any notable differences. Another challenge our Mechanical team faced was creating a model of the PCB board in Ansys and running a thermal analysis on the PCB before it arrives and comparing it to the thermal imaging camera results obtained from pictures taken of the PCB.