3-D Computational Analysis on the Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer of Porous Architected Heat Sinks

Abstract

Implementing Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces (TPMS) cellular structures could exploit the thermal exchange mechanism with a high surface area to volume ratio. In this study, three novel mathematically-driven structures of TPMS fabricated using Selective Laser Melting (SLM) were studied numerically. TPMS heatsinks consisting of 7-unit cells were examined to investigate their thermal performance and fluid flow behaviour. The thermal performance indicators as heat transfer coefficient and surface temperature under parametric variation of fluid enclosure type and orientation were determined. Type of enclosure found to have a significant effect in varying the thermal behaviour of each structure. In addition, including radiation contribution was found to account for approximately 23% of the overall heat transfer in natural convection flow. Numerical results show that TPMS-based heatsinks outperform conventional heatsinks by 35-50% and Aluminium metal foams by 18-32% owing to the random perturbations introduced by the entangled complex interior structure.

Date of Award	May 2020
Original language	American English