Numerical and experimental investigation of TPMS-structured cold plates for electronic device cooling

With the increasing power of electronic chips, cold plates have emerged as a promising solution for cooling high thermal load electronic devices. Additive manufacturing facilitates the production of complex structures, expanding the possibilities for developing advanced designs. Triply Periodic Minimal Surface (TPMS) structures exhibit remarkable thermophysical properties, making them prominent candidates for heat transfer applications. This study numerically investigates the heat transfer capacity and flow characteristics of cold plates with serpentine channels and three TPMS structures, Diamond, Gyroid, and I-WP structures. From numerical results, the inherent mechanisms of TPMS structure strengthening heat transfer are analyzed from flow pattern and combined conduction and convection heat transfer. The results indicate that the Diamond structure exhibits the best overall thermohydraulic performance. The influence of two geometric parameters, porosity and unit cell size, on the thermohydraulic performance of TPMS structure, is examined. A TPMS structure with gradient changes in unit cell size in the direction from plate bottom to top is developed. At a pumping power below 2 W, its ultimate heat flux can exceed 256.9 W/cm 2 , improving the overall performance by 3.58 % to 6.24 % compared with the uniform one. Experimental results verify the reliability of numerical simulations, the maximum relative deviations in temperature, pressure drop, and heat transfer coefficient between numerical and test data were only 7.5 %, 13.9 % and, 5.44 %, respectively. • This paper presents a comprehensive modeling and thermohydraulic analysis of different TPMS-structured cold plates. • An evaluation is conducted to assess the effects of TPMS type, porosity, and unit cell size on thermohydraulic performance. • The inherent mechanisms of TPMS-enhanced heat transfer in cold plates are re-examined along the entire heat transfer path. • A cell size graded structure is proposed, achieving greater heat dissipation with minimal increase in pressure drop. • Experiments are conducted to validate the proposed models and findings.