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Numerical topology optimization of heat sinks

Book Contribution - Book Chapter Conference Contribution

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.
Book: Proceedings of the 15th International Heat Transfer Conference
Publication year:2014
Accessibility:Open