Abstract:
This paper presents the development of the three-dimensional flow architecture of conjugate cooling
channels in forced convection with internal heat generation within the solid for an array of circular cooling
channels with different flow orientation. Three flow orientations were studied: array of channels with
parallel flow; array of channels in which the flow in every second row is in a counter direction with its
neighbours, and flows in all the arrays of channels are in counter flow relative to each other. The geometric
configurations were determined in such a way that the peak temperature was minimised subject to
the constraint of fixed global volume of solid material. The degrees of freedom of the design were hydraulic
diameter and channel to channel spacing. A gradient-based optimisation algorithm was applied to
search for the best optimal geometric configurations that improve thermal performance by minimising
thermal resistance for a wide range of dimensionless pressure differences. The effect of porosities, applied
pressure difference, flow orientation and heat generation rate on the optimal hydraulic diameter and
channel to channel spacing is reported. The results show that the effects of dimensionless pressure drop
on minimum thermal resistance were consistent with those obtained in the open literature.
