Applications of topology optimization in the design of micro- and nanofluidic systems

摘要

We present a versatile high-level programming language implementation of nonlinear topology optimization. Using this method in designing microfluidic systems may result in significant improvements in efficiency by a complete change in the geometry of the micro-channel networks used. Our implementation is based on the commercial software package FEMLAB. The method is general since most problems that can be formulated in the simple divergence form can be optimized, where a wide range of optimization objectives can be dealt with easily. We test the method by studying a simple steady-state Navier-Stokes flow problem. The level of complexity is then increased by optimizing micro-cooling systems with potential applications in e.g. CPU-cooling or micro heat-exchangers.