I-Corps: TOPOLOGY OPTIMIZATION APPLIED TO ADDITIVE MANUFACTURED HEAT EXCHANGERS

I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发可增材制造的拓扑优化热交换器。通过将拓扑优化扩展到三维共轭传热系统，并考虑到增材制造的限制，该项目将展示这两种技术的相关性和实用性。由于重点关注热交换器技术作为示范平台，这项工作还可以提高从汽车到航空航天、电力转换、制冷等一系列对流相关应用的能源效率。I-Corps项目将应用拓扑优化来设计新型热交换器，并在优化过程中考虑增材制造约束。提出的研究中的关键创新允许基于密度的拓扑优化来控制与设计相关的物理边界条件。由此产生的热交换器可以进行附加制造和性能测试以及耐久性测试，以表明拓扑优化过程对于这种类型的应用是可接受的，这种应用在多个竞争方面（即，热性能，压降，热应力，破裂压力，蠕变等）受到高度限制。这项先进的技术可能会通过探索增材制造开辟的更大设计空间，导致比传统换热器散发更多热量的新型换热器。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of topologically-optimized heat exchangers that may be additively manufactured. By extending topology optimization onto three-dimensional conjugate heat transfer systems and by accounting for additive manufacturing constraints, this project will demonstrate the relevance and utility of both technologies. Because of the focus on heat exchanger technology as the demonstration platform, the work also may improve energy efficiency for a host of convection related applications, ranging from automotive to aerospace, power conversion, refrigeration, etc. This I-Corps project will apply topology optimization to design novel heat exchangers and consider additive manufacturing constraints during the optimization process. The key innovation in the proposed research allows density-based topology optimization to control design-dependent physical boundary conditions. The resulting heat exchanger may be additively manufactured and tested both for performance as well as durability in order to show that the topology optimization process is acceptable for this type of application, which is highly constrained along multiple competing aspects (i.e., thermal performance, pressure drop, thermal stress, burst pressure, creep, etc.). This developed technology may lead to new heat exchangers that dissipate more heat than conventional ones by exploring a large design space opened by additive manufacturing.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.