Robustly printable freeform thermal metamaterials

Wei Sha, Mi Xiao, Jinhao Zhang, Xuecheng Ren, Zhan Zhu, Yan Zhang, Guoqiang Xu, Huagen Li, Xiliang Liu, Xia Chen, Liang Gao (), Cheng-Wei Qiu () and Run Hu ()
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Wei Sha: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Mi Xiao: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Jinhao Zhang: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Xuecheng Ren: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Zhan Zhu: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Yan Zhang: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Guoqiang Xu: National University of Singapore
Huagen Li: National University of Singapore
Xiliang Liu: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Xia Chen: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Liang Gao: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Cheng-Wei Qiu: National University of Singapore
Run Hu: Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Thermal metamaterials have exhibited great potential on manipulating, controlling and processing the flow of heat, and enabled many promising thermal metadevices, including thermal concentrator, rotator, cloak, etc. However, three long-standing challenges remain formidable, i.e., transformation optics-induced anisotropic material parameters, the limited shape adaptability of experimental thermal metadevices, and a priori knowledge of background temperatures and thermal functionalities. Here, we present robustly printable freeform thermal metamaterials to address these long-standing difficulties. This recipe, taking the local thermal conductivity tensors as the input, resorts to topology optimization for the freeform designs of topological functional cells (TFCs), and then directly assembles and prints them. Three freeform thermal metadevices (concentrator, rotator, and cloak) are specifically designed and 3D-printed, and their omnidirectional concentrating, rotating, and cloaking functionalities are demonstrated both numerically and experimentally. Our study paves a powerful and flexible design paradigm toward advanced thermal metamaterials with complex shapes, omnidirectional functionality, background temperature independence, and fast-prototyping capability.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27543-7

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