Hydrothermal performance enhancement of microchannel heat sinks embedded with schwarz-triply periodic minimal surface pin fins

This study investigates the hydrothermal performance of a microchannel heat sink (MCHS) incorporating Schwarz-Triply Periodic Minimal Surface (TPMS) pin fins arranged in inline, staggered, and oblique configurations. The effects of pin fin height (1.25–2 mm) and porosity (50 % and 80 %) on key performance parameters, including base temperature (T b ), Nusselt number (Nu), pressure drop (ΔP), and Thermal Performance Factor (TPF), are systematically evaluated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. The results reveal that increasing fin height enhances heat transfer due to the increased surface area and improved conduction path. However, this comes at the cost of higher ΔP. The 50 % porosity configuration exhibits superior thermal performance compared to 80 % porosity, attributed to the greater solid material availability for conduction. The staggered arrangement outperforms the inline configuration, achieving lower base temperatures and higher Nusselt numbers. The oblique-staggered configuration further improves performance by inducing crossflow mixing. The maximum TPF of 2.038 is achieved for the oblique-staggered configuration at 2 mm fin height and 50 % porosity, representing a 103.82 % improvement over the reference case using square pin fins.