Performance evaluation for additively manufactured heat sinks based on Gyroid-TPMS

Conventional heat sinks (HSs) usually have a high-temperature rise and a great surface temperature gradient, which is not conducive to the stable operation of the device being cooled. In this work, two types of heat sink with a novel fin structure based on Gyroid-TPMS are designed and manufactured via selective laser melting (SLM). The hydraulic and thermal performances of alpha 1-HS with the original Gyroid cells and alpha 2-HS with the modified Gyroid cells are studied in numerical simulations and experiments under a specific test platform, and compared with the plate-fin HS (PF-HS). The experimental results show that the alpha 2-HS has smaller pressure drops and pump power which are about 60% those of the alpha 1-HS, and the energy efficiency coefficient of the alpha 1HS is about 60% that of the alpha 2-HS. The alpha 1-HS and alpha 2-HS have lower surface temperature rises and temperature gradients than PF-HS. The alpha 2-HS has more full channels than alpha 1-HS, which can enhance the surface convective heat transfer to obtain a higher surface heat transfer coefficient and a lower thermal resistance. The heat sink efficiency and fin efficiency of the alpha 1-HS and alpha 2-HS are always higher than those of PF-HS. The heat sink efficiency and fin efficiency of alpha 2-HS are higher than those of alpha 1-HS. The research shows that optimizing TPMS structures can improve hydraulic and thermal performance. The methodologies and conclusions in this work may provide a more comprehensive and in-depth performance evaluation for the design and optimization of heat sinks.