Design of Additively Manufactured Heatsinks for Power Electronics Thermal Management using Adjoint Level-set Topology Optimization

This paper investigates the potential of using the Adjoint Level-set topological optimization approach for design of additively manufactured power electronics heat sinks. Additive manufacturing techniques are readily able to fabricate highly complex metal geometries. This capability could be translated into development of higher performance thermal management solutions if the design methodology to exploit this potential. This study attempts to investigate the ability of topology optimization to meet this requirement. This paper provides a brief review of the current state-of-the-art in the topological optimization field. An overview of the Adjoint Level-set method is presented along with details of the implemented framework. This framework is used to design power electronics heatsinks, considering a combination of materials and fluid flow rates. The analysis is multi-objective, simultaneously considering heat extraction and flow pressure difference. The heat flux into the heatsink is considered to be from two discrete heat fluxes representing active packages within the power module. The cooling channels developed by the topology optimization framework react to the position of the heat sources. Results demonstrating the capability for topological optimization to develop effective thermal management solution are presented. The primary conclusions for the study are that this is an area that is worth of further investigation. Significant challenges need to be addressed, particularly relating to the rapid increase in computational cost as flow rates increase, before this technology can be transitioned to commercial adoption.