Influence of Structural Height on the Thermo-Hydraulic Performance of a Water-Cooled Gyroid Heat Sink

The triply periodic minimal surface structure is receiving significant attention amongst the engineering community. The advantage of using such a structure is its ability to provide lightweight cooling to surfaces. In this paper, attention is drawn to a gyroid structure composed of a shell network and a solid network, with a porosity of 0.7. Three different flow rates, using water as the circulating fluid, are experimentally applied to cool a square surface with a base of 37.5 mm and a height of 12.7 mm. It was found that this structure provided a high cooling rate, achieving a Nusselt number around 100 with a solid lattice and 160 for a shell lattice. It is also noted that the TPMS area plays a significant role, thereby increasing the cooling rate. When the TPMS height is 90% of the initial height of 12.7 mm, the performance of both structures is found to be well accepted. Pressure drop is reduced, and the heat performance is improved. The circulating flow above the structure marginally reduced the pressure drop. The performance evaluation criteria for the shell network ranged from 95 < PEC to < 225, and for the solid network from 125 < PEC to < 155. The optimization method has been applied across the entire height range using response surface methodology. It is found that the optimum TPMS height is for an aspect ratio of 95.1%.