Analysis on the convective heat transfer process and performance evaluation of Triply Periodic Minimal Surface (TPMS) based on Diamond, Gyroid and Iwp

Abstract

Heat dissipation capacity is one of the bottlenecks in developing high heat release devices such as electronic chips and laser generators. TPMS exhibits good thermophysical properties and is expected to provide better heat dissipation solutions for high heat-releasing devices. However, studies on the convective heat transfer properties of TPMS structures are still insufficient. In this manuscript, research focuses on evaluating the convective heat transfer performance of several representative TPMS structures and elucidating their mechanism of enhanced heat transfer. The TPMS studied in this paper include Gyroid, Diamond, and Iwp, and their convective heat transfer performance is compared with that of Fins-structure. In addition, an experiment was carried out to verify the accuracy of the numerical simulation. The results showed that the numerical simulation results were in good agreement with the experiment, with an error of less than 6%. In the numerical simulation, the lattice size of the three TPMS is 20 × 20 × 20 mm3, the fluid is air, the heating surface is heated at a constant wall temperature of 373.15 K, and the Reynolds number is in the range of 166–940. Compared with the Fins-structure model, the Nusselt number of TPMS-Diamond is increased by 9–196%, that of TPMS-Gyroid is increased by 5.8–149%, while the TPMS-Iwp is increased by 6.8–43.5%. Among the three TPMS structures, the convective heat transfer performance of TPMS-Dimond is the best, which can be attributed to its geometric structures without the “through-holes,” which leads to a more substantial disturbance of the wall to the fluid, thereby enhancing the heat transfer.