Experimental Forced Convection Study Using a Triply Periodic Minimal Surface Porous Structure with a Nanofluid: Comparison with Numerical Modeling

Triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMSs) show potential as porous materials in different engineering applications. Amongst them, heat sink is the subject of this paper. The advantage of such a structure is the ability to design it based on the intended applications. In the present paper, an attempt is made to experiment with a better understanding of the performance of TPMSs in heat sink applications. The experiment was conducted for different flow rates, and two heat sink materials, aluminum and silver, were used. In addition, two fluids were used experimentally: The first was water, and the second was a mixture of water containing 0.6% aluminum nanoparticles and identified as a nanofluid. The applied heat flux was maintained constant at 30,800 W/m2. The results reveal experimentally and confirm numerically that the TPMS structure secures a uniform heat extraction in the system. The development of the boundary layer in the porous structure is reduced due to the current structure design. A higher Nusselt number is obtained when the nanofluid is used as the circulating fluid. The performance evaluation criteria in the presence of the nanofluid exceed 100.