A fully developed flow thermofluid model for topology optimization of 3D-printed air-cooled heat exchangers

Abstract

In this work, density-based topology optimization is applied to the design of the air-side surface of dry-cooled power plant condensers. A topology optimization model assuming a steady-state, thermally and fluid dynamically fully developed internal flow is developed and used for this application. The conductance of the heat exchanger is maximized for a prescribed pressure drop and prescribed air-side temperature change across the heat exchanger. Polymer with infilled thermally conducting metal filaments is considered as the heat exchanger material which allows cost effective additive manufacturing techniques to be used to fabricate the obtained designs. Parametric studies are presented that analyze the effect of the material thermal conductivity and the heat exchanger unit cell height on the system's performance. The designs obtained from topology optimization are benchmarked against a simple optimized slot channel model in order to demonstrate the superior performance of the topology optimized designs. Thus, this work demonstrates the usefulness of topology optimization to fully exploit the design freedom afforded by additive manufacturing technologies.

A Review of Topology Optimisation for Fluid-Based Problems

“…Yoshimura et al [47] proposed a gradient-free approach using a genetic algorithm and a Kriging surrogate model coupled to an immersed method known as the Building-Cube Method. Haertel and Nellis [121] developed a plane two-dimensional fully-developed flow model for topology optimisation of air-cooled heat sinks. Pietropaoli et al [122] used the impermeability as the design variable to optimise internal channels.…”

Design of passive coolers for light-emitting diode lamps using topology optimisation

“…Conjugate heat transfer was originally treated in [23,24] and is a very active field of research today [25,26,27,28,29]. Most work focuses on forced convection, where the fluid flow is induced by a fan, pump or pressure-gradient.…”

Manufactured chemistry: Rethinking unit operation design in the age of additive manufacturing

“…Matsumori et al, demonstrate a coupled heat transfer and fluid flow methodology for topology optimization with constant thermal power input ( constant on wall) for fin design in a heat exchanger. Most recently, Haertel and Nellis applied a topology optimization design method to the air‐side of an air‐cooled heat exchanger. Incompressible, steady‐state, laminar flow is assumed, thus yielding a simplified analytical framework for the design.…”