C. Hoyle, ONR (2020)

The design of a heat exchanger using tailored and graded alloys manufactured, enabled by the advances in additive manufacturing in this research, is viewed as a two stage optimization process: topology optimization followed by shape/size optimization. Topology optimization is used to determine the optimal arrangement of material within the available design space while shape/size optimization determines the optimal size and shape of the materials. Within the context of heat exchanger design with functionally graded alloys, the frist task will investigate topology optimization to answer not only where material should be placed within the design space, but which material and its functional grading. This research will build off work in topology optimization of thermal systems with extensions to include thermal diffusivity graded materials. In the second task, the results of the topology optimization from the first task will be utilized in the larger heat exchanger design challenge to optimize the size, shape and position of pillars.