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ISSN Online: 2377-424X

ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-421-2

International Heat Transfer Conference 15
August, 10-15, 2014, Kyoto, Japan

Numerical Topology Optimization of Heat Sinks

Get access (open in a dialog) DOI: 10.1615/IHTC15.opt.009168
pages 5985-5999

Abstract

The availability of flexible production techniques challenges their full exploitation during thermo-hydraulic design of micro heat sinks. In this context, a systematic approach capable to take advantage of the practically unlimited design freedom is highly desirable. Therefore, we propose to use topology optimization, a numerical design optimization method well-established in structural mechanics problems. In this paper, the fundamentals of topology optimization, and its application in thermo-hydraulic problems specifically, are pointed out. The method is applied to a practical heat sink model and the necessary adjoint gradient calculation framework is developed. Our results show that topology optimization can come up with innovative design concepts for maximizing the heat transfer of a constant temperature heat source.