Network Redundancy: A Key Design Factor for Cooling Networks

Microvascular composite offers a variety of multi-functionality based on the choice of fluid flowing through the embedded microchannels. The design of the microchannel network in microvascular composites is quite challenging. Indeed, the design is often expected to have high cooling efficiency, satisfy the manufacturing and operating constraints, and also have redundancy to increase the temperature uniformity and alleviate the destructive effects of potential microchannel blockage. In this study, we present a design optimization framework to satisfy these requirements. We use the Hybrid Topology/Shape (HyTopS) optimization scheme to design a redundant blockage-tolerant cooling network. In this method, the optimizer can change the topology of the design during the shape optimization process. Being able to modify the topology of the network enables the optimizer to provide network redundancy to effectively optimize the design for blockage tolerance. We also solve several numerical examples to show the unique features of the proposed method.