System and method for cooling a heat-generating device

A method for cooling a heat-generating device, comprising:

• setting a reference surface temperature of the heat-generating device;
• measuring surface temperatures of the heat-generating device at two or more different locations;
• measuring a temperature gradient based on temperature measurements of two or more different locations on the heat-generating device;
• and
• implementing a closed-loop control based on the reference surface temperature, the average measured surface temperature, and the measured temperature gradient of the heat-generating device to compute a rate of application of a cooling material to the surface of the heat-generating device;
• computing a dissipated heat of the heat-generating device based on the measured temperature gradient;
• deriving a critical heat flux (CHF) of the heat-generating device;
• determining whether the computed dissipated heat plus a tolerance range for the computed dissipated heat is less than the derived CHF;
• and
• providing a command to apply the cooling material to the surface of the heat-generating device at the calculated rate to cool the heat-generating device.