Transient thermal performance using phase change material integrated topology optimized heat sinks

Phase change materials represent a unique opportunity for mitigating thermal transients sustained during the operation of electronics without major increases in the overall system’s weight, size and power consumption. However, their integration poses challenges stemming from the low thermal conductivity associated with PCM. The present study aims to use Topology optimization (TO) to generate optimal heat spreading structures that can be coupled with PCM to enhance the heat transfer rate. Given the complexity of the generated fin geometries, additive manufacturing (AM), specifically Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS), is used to fabricate the heat sinks. Experimental results indicated the ability of the topology-optimized thermal conductivity enhancers (TCE) to improve PCM performance significantly relative to a benchmark design with plate fins. Additionally, TO along with AM were utilized to build a hybrid heat sink with combined conduction-convection-latent cooling. Under a pulsed load of 50 W, the hybrid heat sink exhibited the capacity to lower peak temperature by up to 18.9 °C relative to a benchmark plate fin design of similar dimensions.