Optimization-based design of easy-to-make devices for heat flux manipulation

FACHINOTTI, VÍCTOR D.; CIARBONETTI, ÁNGEL A.; PERALTA, IGNACIO; RINTOUL, IGNACIO

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THERMAL SCIENCES

ELSEVIER FRANCE-EDITIONS SCIENTIFIQUES MEDICALES ELSEVIER

Lugar: Paris; Año: 2018 vol. 128 p. 38 - 48

1290-0729

p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; }In thiswork, we present a new method for the design of heat fluxmanipulating devices, with emphasis on their manufacturability. Thedesign is obtained as solution of a nonlinear optimization problemwhere the objective function represents the given heat fluxmanipulation task, and the design variables define the materialdistribution in the device. In order to facilitate the fabrication ofthe device, the material at a given point is chosen between twomaterials with highly different conductivity. By this way, the wholedevice can be seen, in the large scale, as a metamaterial having aspecific anisotropic effective conductivity. As an applicationexample, we designed a heat flux inverter which was so simple thatit could be hand-made. The performance of this device for heat fluxinversion was experimentally tested, proving that it was moreefficient than a more complex device designed using the classicaltransformation thermodynamics approach.