Topology optimization for spider web heat sinks for electronic cooling

•The topology optimization method is firstly employed for bionic heat sinks.•The performance of the heat sinks are studied by numerically and experimentally.•Different optimization goals for temperature uniformity can lead to different results.•The optimal heat sinks is superior to the conventional heat sinks in terms of the performance.•The CFD results agree well with the experimental results. In this paper, topology optimization method is applied to bionic domain, and in order to improve the thermal performance of heat sinks, two topological heat sinks are obtained under two objectives. One objective is minimize the temperature difference and pressure drop, and another is minimize the average temperature and pressure drop. The topological heat sink designed by topology optimization with the minimum temperature difference and the pressure drop as a goal is named as M2, while that designed with the minimum average temperature and the pressure drop as a goal is called M3. The flow and thermal performance of these two topological flow channel heat sinks are investigated numerically. The results show that for Re = 2056.8, the temperature difference of the topological heat sink M2 is reduced by 57.35% compared to conventional spider web heat sink M1, while that of the topological heat sink M3 is reduced by 10.64% compared to M1. In addition, the thermal resistance of the topological heat sinks are smaller than the conventional spider web heat sink. Through analysis, it can be known that M2 has the best comprehensive heat dissipation capacity. In order to verify the correctness of the numerical simulation, M2 is manufactured, and the heat transfer performance of M2 is investigated experimentally. The experimental results of the optimal heat sink agree well with the calculated results.