Design of nanofluid-cooled heat sink using topology optimization

Bin ZHANG, Jihong ZHU, Gaoxiang XIANG, Limin GAO

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Scopus citations

Abstract

The paper presented topology optimization of 2D and 3D Nanofluid-Cooled Heat Sink (NCHS). The flow and heat transfer problem in the NCHS was treated as a single-phase nanofluid based convective heat transfer model. The temperature-dependent fluid properties were taken into account in the model due to the strong temperature-dependent features of nanofluids. An average temperature minimum problem was studied subject to the fluid area and energy dissipation constraints by using the density method. In the method, the design variable is updated according to the gradient information obtained by an adjoint based sensitivity analysis process. The effects of the energy dissipation constraint, temperature-dependent fluid properties and nanofluid characteristics on optimal configurations of NCHS were numerically investigated with following conclusions. Firstly, branched flow channels in the optimal configuration increased with the rise of the allowed energy dissipation. Secondly, temperature-dependent fluid properties were significant for obtaining the appropriate optimal results with best cooling performance. Thirdly, heat transfer performances of optimal configurations were enhanced by reducing the nanoparticle diameter or increasing the nanoparticle volume fraction. Fourthly, the optimal configuration for nanofluid had better cooling performance than that for its base fluid.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)301-317
Number of pages17
JournalChinese Journal of Aeronautics
Volume34
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2021

Keywords

  • Forced convection
  • Heat sinks
  • Heat transfer
  • Nanofluid
  • Sensitivity analysis
  • Topology optimization

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