How to correctly simulate a heat sink that was additive manufactured??

Angel Gonzalez

Hi everyone

Im trying to simulate and recreate some experimental data involving 2 heat sinks, one of aluminum fabricated with conventional manufacturing and the other of stainless steel with additive manufacturing. The experiment consisted in compare the performance of both in terms of heat transfer. The issue is that Im failing to match up the experimental results with the simulation where experimentally the additve manufactured one performed better and in the simulation was the other way around(You can see the result of the simulation in the attached images). I´d like to know if there is a way to properly simulate and capture the changes that additive manufacturing makes to the material of the heat sink.(I already refined the mesh and used the roughness height option and no big changes in the simulation results occured)

 

I appreciate any suggestions!

acupro

You also need to make sure you have at least three volumetric elements through any solid, to get proper heat conduction.  It's difficult to determine from the pictures if you have that.

You'll need to properly specify the bulk material properties for the steel versus the aluminum.  The solver will be only as good as the information given, including material properties.

Angel Gonzalez

acupro_21778 said:

You also need to make sure you have at least three volumetric elements through any solid, to get proper heat conduction.  It's difficult to determine from the pictures if you have that.

You'll need to properly specify the bulk material properties for the steel versus the aluminum.  The solver will be only as good as the information given, including material properties.

I appreciate your reply. Besides those recommendations, do you know if there is any specific way I should define the boundary conditions or material properties of the additively manufactured heat sink? As far as I know, the additive manufacturing process changes the microstructure of materials.

Thank you in advance

 

 

acupro

Angel Gonzalez said:

I appreciate your reply. Besides those recommendations, do you know if there is any specific way I should define the boundary conditions or material properties of the additively manufactured heat sink? As far as I know, the additive manufacturing process changes the microstructure of materials.

Thank you in advance

 

 

From the CFD side - the bulk material properties (density, thermal conductivity, specific heat, etc) must be provided - likely determined/measured from experiments.