Investigation of flow and heat transfer characteristics in heterogeneous Gyroid porous scaffold based on hybrid LBM-FVM solver and FGRA

Triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) porous scaffold has been widely investigated for the heat transfer enhancement. However, the influence mechanism of heterogeneous structural transformations on the thermal-fluid characteristics of TPMS structures remains unclear and requires further research. To realize the batch simulation of the conjugate heat transfer process in heterogeneous TPMS structures with different morphologies, a hybrid solver combining the lattice Boltzmann method and the finite volume method is developed to avoid the complex geometry modeling and body-fitted grid generation problems of the TPMS structures. With the help of the hybrid solver, orthogonal experimental design, and fuzzy grey relational analysis (FGRA), the flow and heat transfer characteristics of the heterogeneous Gyroid TPMS porous scaffold are revealed, and the individual contribution degree for the TPMS structural variables to the performance parameters are reported. The results indicate that: reasonable heterogeneous structural transformations can enhance heat transfer while reducing flow resistance, and compared with the homogeneous structures, the more complicated flow patterns of the forked spiral flow in heterogeneous structures might be crucial to further improve the heat transfer performance. This work provides a novel approach for the batch numerical simulation and comprehensive assessment of the conjugate heat transfer process in TPMS structures, which contributes to realizing the efficient topological customization of TPMS-based porous structures for heat transfer enhancement.