Influence of Objective Functions on the Topology‐Optimization Design of Heat‐Dissipation Structures

With the development of high‐power electronic devices, batteries, and compact modules with high heat‐flux densities, efficient thermal management has become increasingly important. However, conventional heat‐dissipation structures (HDSs) are often constrained by predefined geometries and empirical design rules. Here, we investigate how the choice of objective function affects the topology optimization of conductive HDSs. Under identical steady‐state conductive boundary conditions and high‐conductivity‐material volume fractions, we implement arithmetic‐mean‐temperature minimization, geometric‐mean‐temperature minimization, entransy‐dissipation minimization, and their weighted multiobjective combinations within an Solid iostropic Material with Penalization (SIMP) density‐based topology‐optimization framework. Six optimized structures are fabricated and experimentally compared with a conventional snowflake‐like heat sink under three heating powers. All optimized topologies form branched conductive pathways, but their morphologies and heat‐dissipation mechanisms differ markedly. Entransy‐dissipation minimization produces the most direct radial heat‐transfer pathways and the strongest suppression of peak temperature. The maximum temperatures are 42.4°C, 51.1°C, and 63.2°C, respectively, compared with 54.3°C, 65.1°C, and 78.2°C for the conventional structure. The cooling improvement efficiency reaches 23%–28%. By contrast, geometric‐mean‐temperature minimization achieves only 3%–5% improvement because it does not form sufficiently low‐resistance pathways near the heat source. These results indicate that the entransy‐dissipation objective is advantageous when peak temperature and equivalent thermal resistance are the primary constraints, whereas the geometric‐mean‐temperature objective is more suitable when a spatially uniform temperature field is prioritized. This work provides guidance for selecting objective functions in topology‐optimized heat sinks for electronic devices, batteries, and compact thermal‐management systems.