Abstract

Additive Manufacturing (AM) of metal parts has become broadly accessible in the last decade. However, most industry sectors still have uncertainty when it comes to AM adoption for production. This is especially true when it comes to new unconventional design paradigms that can be only manufactured with technologies such as AM. The use of simulation can reduce the risk of failure while accelerating the product development process for these next-generation products. The presentation will focus on a novel heat exchanger design that was developed in partnership between nTopology, ANSYS, Synopsys, EOS, and North Star Imaging (NSI). The specific heat exchanger design for aerospace applications (Fuel Cooled Oil Cooler) leverages properties of triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) to generate a highly efficient single component design to replace existing plate and tube exchanger designs. Design simulations for fluid and thermal simulations were used to verify and optimize the performance of the new design. The resulting design is 80% lighter yet more efficient than comparable traditional designs. Additive Manufacturing process simulations (coupled thermal-structural) were used to optimize the process so that the residual stresses and the support requirements were minimized or eliminated, altogether. The successful build of the optimized design was scanned for potential build failures or porosity using CT. The simulation of the as-built geometry (from CT scan) is useful in validating the performance of the printed part. Additionally, the mechanical integrity of the as-built designs for structural integrity is discussed. In addition to the computational demands, the specific design geometry brings challenges typical when leveraging novel designs for additive manufacturing. The geometry was generated using an implicit geometry engine. The complex TPMS structure can create large STL files affecting downstream mesh size required for reasonable accuracy. The methodology is proposed general and can be applied to a broad class of products manufactured with AM.