Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) researchers have designed and tested a new cooling configuration that could improve thermal management in compact electronic devices. The institute’s Flat Plate Pulsating Heat Pipe (FPPHP) with an ‘O-ring’configuration delivers 16 per cent lower overall thermal resistance compared to traditional configurations across applications like laptops and phones, data centre infrastructure, electric vehicles and defence and avionics among other industries.The research team also found that using aluminium instead of copper reduces weight and improves performance in this configuration—aluminium versions showed about 20 per cent lower thermal resistance than copper versions.The research was led by Prof. Arvind Pattamatta and Pallab Sinha Mahapatra from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Madras, in collaboration with Davis T Vempany and Hemanth Dileep from IIT Madras, Laxman Kumar Malla from Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering, Chennai, and Pankaj Srivastava from the Instruments Research & Development Establishment (IRDE), Dehradun.Published on July 27, 2026