Additively manufactured lattice structure heat sink for railway power electronics liquid cooling

Recent advances in additive manufacturing make it possible to generate complex metal geometries even on a small scale. This has great utility in manufacturing custom heat exchangers to face the environmental and operational challenges of the railway industry. In this paper, BCCz unit cell type lattice structures were used as heat exchangers. Six different geometries were generated by modifying the distribution of unit cells but keeping the same porosity. CFD simulations have been carried out and the results are compared with those obtained for a conventional machined pin fins heat exchanger. Two lattice geometries were selected to be manufactured by additive manufacturing (AM) in addition to a pin fins one. A feasibility study has been carried out on the 3D printing technique to be used. CFD simulations were carried out on the exchangers with a lattice structure in addition to the two pin fins exchangers (machined and manufactured by AM). Experimental measurements made it possible to validate the numerical ones. The results agree not only on the potential of lattice heat exchangers, but also on the need to optimize it to meet the operational conditions.