A Review of Recent Investigations on Flow and Heat Transfer Enhancement in Cooling Channels Embedded with Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces (TPMS)

Triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) have shown better mechanical performance, mass transfer, and thermal conductivity than conventional and strut-based structures, which have been employed in different disciplines. Most of the literature investigates different TPMS topologies in cooling channels to enhance thermal performance due to the smooth curvature and large surface area. However, a deeper investigation of the effects of TPMS design variables and the thermal performance advantages of cooling channels is required. This review details the effects of TPMS design variables, i.e., porosity, wall thickness, and unit cell size, on flow and heat transfer enhancement. It is found that varying the design variables significantly changes the flow and heat transfer characteristics. Also, by comparing TPMS and conventional cooling structures, it is found that most TPMS structures show better thermal performance than other strategies. Moreover, different fabrication methods for TPMS-based cooling channels in recent investigations are collected and discussed. In light of the reviewed literature, recommendations for future research suggest that more experimental and numerical studies on the flow and heat transfer for different cooling applications are needed. Therefore, this review serves as a reference tool to guide future studies on the flow and heat transfer of TPMS-based cooling channels.