Dr. Michael Gibbons
Assistant Professor, Mechanical, Manuf & Biomedical Eng
Biography
Michael Gibbons is Assistant Professor in Heat Transfer in the Department of Mechanical, Manufacturing and Biomedical Engineering at Trinity College Dublin, a Royal Society-Research Ireland University Research Fellow (2021 to 2029), and Principal Investigator of the Thermal Fluids and Energy group (www.gibbonslab.com). He received his BAI (2012) and PhD (2017) in Mechanical Engineering from Trinity College Dublin, followed by postdoctoral fellowships at York University and the Centre for Advanced Coating Technologies, University of Toronto, and an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship at Trinity. He has held competitively won fellowships continuously since 2012 (IRC EMBARK, IRC Government of Ireland, and a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship declined in favour of the Royal Society URF), and has twice been selected for ERC interview. His research covers two-phase heat transfer from the microscale physics of the evaporating contact line to device-level heat transport: pore-scale simulation of capillary-fed boiling, micro laser powder bed fusion and electrochemical additive manufacturing of porous metal wicks, loop heat pipes and two-phase mechanically pumped loops for data-centre waste heat recovery, and machine-learned closures for the design of two-phase evaporators. His work on contact-line evaporation introduced the contact line density as the governing parameter for droplet heat transfer, and his group's micro laser powder bed fusion wicks reached 60 µm resolution with the highest reported capillary performance for a printed cross-hatched wick. He led the Trinity experiment on ESA parabolic flight campaign PFC 66 and is Trinity lead on the ESA Topical Team ATeMS. He has authored over 30 peer-reviewed outputs and secured about €3.4M in research funding, €1.8M as PI from the Royal Society and Research Ireland and €1.6M as co-PI from industry. He supervises five PhD students and two postdoctoral researchers, has supervised 38 master's and bachelor theses, and his team has won an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship, an MSCA Global Fellowship and a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship. He co-chaired THERMINIC 2022, co-organised the 54th European Two-Phase Flow Group Meeting (2024), is an inaugural member of the Royal Irish Academy Young Academy of Ireland, and served on the committees of ASHRAE Ireland and ASHRAE TC 9.9 (2021 to 2025).
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Chatterjee, C., Lupoi, R., Gibbons, M.J., The Evolution of Aerosol Jet Printing, A Review: Enhancing Material Versatility and Improvements for Next-Generation Applications, Advanced Materials Technologies, 2026
M.E. Nimvari, M.J. Gibbons, Dual-Scale Micropillar Architectures for Enhanced Boiling and Capillary Transport: A 3D Pore-Scale Study, Physics of Fluids, 38, 2026
Nimvari M.E., Persoons T., Gibbons M.J., Numerical simulation of boiling in wick structures: Comparative analysis of mono - Bi - and hybrid porous media, International Journal of Thermofluids, 32, 2026
Pengfei Guo, Majid Eshagh Nimvari, Kairui Zhang, Fei Wang, Michael Gibbons, High-resolution porous media and enhanced capillary performance prepared by micro laser powder bed fusion, Materials & Design, 270, 2026, p116974
Connor Bamford, Ross Cuthbert, Kevin Daly, Niall Farrell, Michael Gibbons, Abdollah Malekjafarian, María Rodriguez Aburto, Young Academy Ireland Sustainability Statement, Young Academy of Ireland, 2026
Guo P., Martin A., Zhai C., Li Z., Lu X., Yu J., Lin X., Odnevall I., Gibbons M., Schubert A., Effect of current density on electrochemical machining process of laser powder bed fusion manufactured Inconel 718, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, 337, 2025
Nimvari M.E., Persoons T., Gibbons M.J., Pore-scale simulation of boiling in biporous media incorporating capillary effects, International Journal of Thermal Sciences, 217, 2025
P. Guo, J. Volpp, H. Naesstroem, S. Marola, W. Zhang, J. Mouzon, R. Casati, M. Gibbons, R. Lupoi, A. F.H. Kaplan, In-situ monitoring and metallographic observations of mass transfer and defect formation during AlSi10Mg additive manufacturing using powder sheets, Optics & Laser Technology, 192, (Part A), 2025, p113495
M. Eshagh Nimvari, M. J. Gibbons, Multiphase flow simulation in hybrid porous structure, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 9th European Thermal Sciences Conference (Eurotherm 2024), Lake Bled, Slovenia, 12/06/2024, edited by IOP Publishing , (1), 2024
Gibbons, M. J., Garivalis, A. I., O'Shaughnessy, S. M., Robinson, A. J., Di Marco, P., Water droplet evaporation in varied gravity and electric fields, npj Microgravity, 10, (1), 2024
Majid Eshagh Nimvari, Tim Persoons, Michael Gibbons, Pore-scale simulation of two-phase flow in biporous media, Physics of Fluids, 36, (10), 2024
Farrell, G. and Gibbons, M. and Persoons, T., Combined Passive/Active Flow Control of Drag and Lift Forces on a Cylinder in Crossflow Using a Synthetic Jet Actuator and Porous Coatings, Actuators, 11, (7), 2022
Battaglioli, S. and James, O. and Gibbons, M.J. and Persoons, T., Simplified Steady-State Representation of Slot Synthetic Jet Actuators to Enable Numerical Optimization with Steady RANS Simulations, IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology, 11, (11), 2021, p1750-1758
A. Khakpour , M.J. Gibbons and S. Chandra, Effect of moisture condensation on vapour transmission through porous membranes, Journal of Industrial Textiles, 2021, p1-21
M.J. Gibbons, M. Marengo, T. Persoons, A review of heat pipe technology for foldable electronic devices, Applied Thermal Engineering, 194, (117087), 2021, p1-26
Gibbons, M.J., Yates, S.G., O'Shaughnessy, S.M., Persoons, T., Murray, D.B., Natural convection from a triangular array of isothermal horizontal cylinders, Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, 2021, p110413
Gibbons, M.J., Garivalis, A.I., O'Shaughnessy, S., Di Marco, P., Robinson, A.J., Evaporating hydrophilic and superhydrophobic droplets in electric fields, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 164, 2021, p120539
Feng, C., Gibbons, M.J., Marengo, M., Chandra, S., A novel ultra-large flat plate heat pipe manufactured by thermal spray, Applied Thermal Engineering, 171, 2020, p115030
Gibbons, M.J., Di Marco, P., Robinson, A.J., Heat flux distribution beneath evaporating hydrophilic and superhydrophobic droplets, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 148, 2020, p119093
Gibbons, Michael J., Nikafshar, Saeid, Saravi, Tina, Ohno, Katie, Chandra, Sanjeev, Nejad, Mojgan, Analysis of a Wide Range of Commercial Exterior Wood Coatings, Coatings, 10, (11), 2020, p1013
Devaraj, Sudarshan, Anand, Bobby, Gibbons, Michael, McDonald, André, Chandra, Sanjeev, Thermal spray deposition of aluminum and zinc coatings on thermoplastics, Surface and Coatings Technology, 399, 2020, p126114
Feng, Chen, Gibbons, Michael, Chandra, Sanjeev, Fabrication of Composite Heat Sinks Consisting of a Thin Metallic Skin and a Polymer Core Using Wire-Arc Spraying, Journal of Thermal Spray Technology, 28, (5), 2019, p974-985
M.J. Gibbons, G. Saccone, S.M. O'Shaughnessy, A.J. Robinson, P. Di Marco, Local convective heat flux to evaporating water droplets in micro-g to 2-g, 13th International Conference on Two-Phase Systems for Space and Ground Applications, Xi'an, China, October 15th-19th, 2018
Gibbons, M.J. and Di Marco, P. and Robinson, A.J., Local heat transfer to an evaporating superhydrophobic droplet, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 121, 2018, p641-652
Michael Gibbons, Composite heat sink LED cooling, The Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering International Congress 2018, York University, Toronto, Canada, 27/5/2018, 2018
Chen Feng, Subramaniam Yugeswaran, Michael Gibbons, Sanjeev Chandra, Analytical heat conduction model of annular composite fins, The Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering International Congress 2018, York University, Toronto, Canada, 27/5/2018, 2018
Gibbons, M.J. and Robinson, A.J., Electrospray array heat transfer, International Journal of Thermal Sciences, 129, 2018, p451-461
Gibbons M.J, Robinson A.J, Heat transfer characteristics of single cone-jet electrosprays, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 113, 2017, p70 - 83
Gibbons M.J, Howe C.M, Di Marco P, Robinson A.J, Local Heat Transfer to an Evaporating Sessile Droplet in an Electric Field, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 745, (3), 2016, p032066-
M.J. Gibbons, A.J. Robinson, Plume Characterisation of a Single Source Electrospray for Micro Electronic Cooling, International Symposium on Electrohydrodynamics (ISEHD 2014), The Beach Tower Okinawa, Okinawa, Japan, 23/06/2014, 2014
M. Gibbons, S. Finnegan, M. Maguire, S. O'Dea, A.J. Robinson, Heat Transfer Characterization of a Single Source Ultra-Low Flow Rate Electrospray, 8th World Conference on Experimental Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics, and Thermodynamics, Lisbon, Portugal, June 16-20, 2013
Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications
RTE News, Head over heels: Studying water in zero gravity, 2018, -
Irish Independent, Irish scientists among elite team to fly in 'Vomit Comet', 2018, -
Research Expertise
Description
Two-phase heat transfer from the microscale physics of the evaporating contact line to device-level thermal management. Current work centres on porous structures made by laser powder bed fusion and electrochemical additive manufacturing: how pore architecture sets capillary performance, boiling and dry-out, studied by micro-CT metrology, pore-scale volume-of-fluid simulation and capillary and boiling experiments. Device applications include loop heat pipes with printed wicks, flow-boiling evaporators and two-phase mechanically pumped loops for data-centre waste heat recovery, and flexible flat heat pipes. A modelling strand builds machine-learned closures for topology optimisation of two-phase evaporators. Related interests: droplet evaporation and electric-field effects, heat transfer in reduced gravity, atmospheric water harvesting, and thermal management of electronics and data centres.Projects
- Title
- Two-phase mechanical pumped loop for data center waste heat recovery
- Summary
- Royal Society-Research Ireland University Research Fellowship renewal (2026 to 2029). Develops a flow-boiling evaporator for a two-phase mechanically pumped loop that recovers waste heat from data centres for reuse. Machine-learned flow-boiling correlations are combined with topology optimisation to design microporous evaporators, which are manufactured by laser powder bed fusion and electrochemical additive manufacturing and tested in a new flow-boiling facility and a full pumped loop.
- Funding Agency
- Royal Society / Research Ireland
- Date From
- 01/10/2026
- Date To
- 30/09/2029
- Title
- Loop heat pipe for waste heat recovery in data centres
- Summary
- Royal Society-Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellowship (2021 to 2026), with two Enhanced Research Expenses awards. Developed passive two-phase heat transport for data-centre waste heat recovery, centred on the porous wick in the loop heat pipe evaporator. Outcomes include additively manufactured stainless-steel wicks at 60 µm resolution with record capillary performance, the first pore-scale simulations of capillary flow and boiling in mono-, bi- and hybrid porous media, and a working loop heat pipe with printed wicks.
- Funding Agency
- Royal Society / Research Ireland
- Date From
- 01/10/2021
- Date To
- 30/09/2026
- Title
- M3LBM: Micro-scale multiphase modelling of the gas diffusion layer using Lattice Boltzmann Method for fuel cells
- Summary
- Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (Dr Ammar Tariq), scored 96.8/100. Develops pore-scale lattice Boltzmann models of water and air transport in the gas diffusion and microporous layers of proton-exchange membrane fuel cells, built on micro-CT reconstructions of real geometries, to guide the design of porous layers that manage water more effectively.
- Funding Agency
- European Commission
- Date From
- 01/05/2026
- Date To
- 30/04/2028
- Title
- Novel engineered multiscale surfaces for high-efficiency atmospheric water harvesting
- Summary
- Research Ireland Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship (Longping Wu). Develops multiscale biphilic copper condensation surfaces, with alternating water-attracting and water-repelling regions, using electrochemical additive manufacturing, and tests them for atmospheric water harvesting. The project also establishes the group's copper electrochemical additive manufacturing facility.
- Funding Agency
- Research Ireland
- Date From
- 01/09/2026
- Date To
- 31/08/2030
- Title
- Flexible heat pipe for energy harvesting applications
- Summary
- Research Ireland ADVANCE Centre for Research Training PhD studentship (Tanweer Hussain). Develops a flexible flat heat pipe with a gas-impermeable laminated polymer-metal casing for wearable and flexible electronics, supported by a computational model coupling volume-of-fluid simulation of the vapour space with a volume-averaged porous wick.
- Funding Agency
- Research Ireland
- Date From
- 01/09/2023
- Date To
- 31/08/2027
- Title
- Biosensor development for connected health technology
- Summary
- Research Ireland ADVANCE Centre for Research Training PhD studentship (Chandrachur Chatterjee). Develops aerosol-jet-printed wearable electrochemical glucose sensors on flexible substrates, with machine-learning surrogate models used to optimise the printing process for line quality and conductivity.
- Funding Agency
- Research Ireland
- Date From
- 01/09/2023
- Date To
- 31/08/2027
- Title
- Two-phase microfluidic cooling and waste heat recovery for next-generation 3-D integrated circuits
- Summary
- Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship (GOIPD/2019/666), mentored by Dr Tim Persoons. Independent fellowship investigating two-phase microfluidic cooling of stacked three-dimensional integrated circuits and the recovery of their waste heat. During the fellowship I also continued droplet evaporation research with the University of Pisa and the ESA microgravity programme.
- Funding Agency
- Irish Research Council
- Date From
- 01/10/2019
- Date To
- 30/09/2021
- Title
- LEAP: Loop heat pipe for waste heat recovery in data centres
- Summary
- Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020), scored 97.4/100. Proposed loop heat pipe technology for data-centre waste heat recovery, with a planned secondment to Seagate. Awarded in February 2021 and declined in favour of the Royal Society University Research Fellowship, which took the same research forward.
- Funding Agency
- European Commission
- Title
- Development of a Novel Solid State Electrospray Delivery System
- Summary
- Irish Research Council EMBARK Postgraduate Scholarship funding doctoral research at Trinity College Dublin (supervisor Dr Anthony Robinson) on electrospray cooling and the local heat transfer beneath evaporating droplets, measured by infrared thermography.
- Funding Agency
- Irish Research Council (IRCSET)
- Date From
- 03/09/2012
- Date To
- 02/09/2016
Recognition
Representations
Trinity College Dublin lead, European Space Agency Topical Team ATeMS (Advanced Thermal Management in Space and Planetary Exploration), 33 institutions and 6 companies.
External examiner, PhD, York University, Toronto: "Thermal-hydraulic characterization of metal additively manufactured wicks"
Trinity College Dublin nominee, Irish Research Council Early-Career Researcher of the Year
Committee member, ASHRAE Ireland Chapter
Irish representative, EUROTHERM Young Scientist Award, nominated by the Irish EUROTHERM committee
Awards and Honours
Royal Society-Research Ireland University Research Fellowship, renewal awarded (2026 to 2029)
Trinity College Dublin nominee, Irish Research Council Early-Career Researcher of the Year
Royal Society-Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellowship (2021 to 2026)
Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship, awarded with a score of 97.4/100 (declined in favour of the Royal Society URF)
Irish representative, EUROTHERM Young Scientist Award 2021, selected by the Irish EUROTHERM committee
Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship
Gold Medal, Trinity College Dublin, for an average of over 80% in the degree examinations
Irish Research Council EMBARK Postgraduate Scholarship
Foundation Scholar, Trinity College Dublin (85.3% in the scholarship examinations, second in Engineering)
Memberships
Royal Irish Academy, Young Academy of Ireland (inaugural member); co-lead, Sustainability Working Group