This isnt a breakthrough..
This isnt even in the WOW territory.
This top fan is trying to remove the dead spots.
Its basically removing the requirement of a shroud.
You remove the dead spot, you got total saturation of surface area on the sink to transfer heat.
however his model is flawed due to the lack of surface area, unless that baseplate is composed of unidirection carbon nanotubes.
His model and study has been SMASHED and hammered by Watercooling Testers for many years now using WATER as the medium, and not air.
Also a VERY BIG company went into this type of venture.. and realized its FAIL... (OCZ being that company)
Water gives u a better reaction so you can model your sink due to water's not being able to compress.
You can also record the turbulence the water makes inside vs an air sink where it would compress.
(where OCZ kinda gave up.. tony said transferring from "point A to B was very difficult"
Yes i miss OCZ Tony and his CRAZY experiments he would run in OCZ's RnD.)
So again, he failed at noting the air compression its undergoing as the air compresses in that tight heat pocket.
You cant ignore hydrodynamic pressure with air when it has a compression coefficient.
The reason why sinks have fins is in easy physics more surface area.
Having more surface area allows greater transfer of heat.
Thats where his model fails.... he's not improving anything, he's just making it more efficient with his top fan being more of a screw type then a traditional pusher.
its not just thin.. but also surface area... this is why we in watercooling use ultra thin bases, with fins.
You can make it sound all wowish all you want, but when u look at raw physics, cant escape physics.
My 3 rules in thermo.
1. You must play.
2. You cant cheat.
3. You can never quit.
If you guys wanna ask me.. i think future coolers will be like those fiber optic lamps.
where each hair fiber is a unidirectional carbon nano tube which pulls heat and radiates it though those hair like follicles.
This solution would also be passive... and should be able to cool massive amount of heat due to the intense surface area those hair give.