Customizing thermal regulation of composite phase change materials using triply periodic minimal surfaces: A coupled simulation and intelligent algorithms optimization framework

The increasing integration and complexity of electronic devices impose greater demands on thermal management systems. Traditional forced convection and air-cooling techniques are becoming inadequate for meeting the growing heat dissipation requirements. Phase change materials (PCM), with their high latent heat storage capacity and thermal stability, have emerged as promising passive cooling media. However, the inherently low thermal conductivity of PCM limits their heat dissipation performance. A heat transfer model was developed by embedding three representative triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) structures, namely IWP, Gyroid, and Primitive, into PCM to form composite phase change materials (CPCM). The thermal performance, including temperature control duration, liquid fraction, temperature difference, and flow velocity, was systematically evaluated under a range of relative densities (9–21%). An artificial neural network (ANN) is employed to predict thermal responses, and the NSGA-II algorithm is integrated for multi-objective optimization. Results indicate that the Gyroid structure achieves the most balanced trade-off between thermal conductivity and natural convection, outperforming both IWP and Primitive structures in thermal regulation. Porosity and surface area are identified as key parameters influencing thermal performance. The Gyroid structure further demonstrates customizable performance across application scenarios through adjustable optimization weights, achieving a thermal conduction contribution of up to 94.95% in conductivity-oriented scheme and a natural convection contribution of up to 10.81% in convection-oriented scheme. This study presents a comprehensive methodology that integrates numerical simulation, deep learning-based prediction, and multi-objective optimization, offering new insights and design strategies for efficient thermal management of electronic devices.