Tumour Morphology as a Thermal Engineering Design Library: Extracting Heat Exchanger Geometries from Oncological Shape Taxonomy

Biological geometries that solved fluid-delivery problems under evolutionary or pathological selection pressure constitute valid source libraries for thermal engineering design. This paper proposes that tumour morphology — the full geometric vocabulary of solid malignancies including bulk shape, surface topology, internal vascular networks, void structures, and necrotic cores — represents an untapped design library for heat exchangers and surface thermal management systems. Tumours are not random geometries. They are shapes that emerged under a specific optimisation pressure: maximise nutrient and fluid delivery to a rapidly expanding mass against diffusion limits. This is structurally identical to the core heat exchanger problem. The oncological morphology taxonomy — lobular, papillary, spiculated/infiltrative, mucinous, and necrotic-cored types — is reframed here as a catalogue of distinct fluid-delivery and surface-maximisation strategies available for engineering extraction. This work extends a lineage of biological surface colonisation geometries as thermal design sources, following moss and fungal growth pattern analogs, into the domain of pathological growth morphology.