With the increasing power consumption of electronic devices, the demand for efficient thermal management solutions continues to rise. Among these candidates, nanofluids have attracted considerable attention due to their superior thermal conductivity. However, it is challenging to design efficient flow fields using nanofluids due to the complex interactions between nanoparticles and the base fluid. In this study, we propose a topology optimization framework for nanofluid-based microchannel heat sinks. The model employs an Eulerian-Eulerian approach to simulate the behavior of nanoparticles and fluid, and incorporates a two-layer model to simplify three-dimensional heat transfer. The optimization problem is formulated to minimize the average bottom temperature under a fixed pressure drop. In the numerical example, the unit cell in a manifold microchannel heat sink is selected as the representative domain for investigation. The results demonstrate that the optimized design achieves enhanced heat dissipation compared to the conventional straight flow channel, highlighting the potential of the proposed method for next-generation nanofluid heat sink design.
Chen et al. (Wed,) studied this question.