A bioinspired programmable Self-Organization approach for designing additively manufactured heat sinks

Heat sinks are pivotal components for enormous energy conversion and storage systems. While extensive efforts have been devoted to heat sink design, it is still substantially challenging to obtain heat sink structures that synergize the flow field and temperature field for high thermohydraulic performance. This study proposed a bioinspired programmable self-organization approach followed by systematic experimental and numerical evaluations, to design air-cooled heat sinks. Compared with baseline regular pin–fin arrays, the optimized heat sinks counterintuitively show a remarkable increase of Nusselt number by up to 60% and a dramatic decline of friction factor by up to 40%, which is induced by the improved velocity uniformity, larger contact area and lower form drag. This novel self-organization approach integrated with additive manufacturing potentially provides a powerful framework for future heat sink design.