December 17, 2024

Lightweight Cold Plate Development for Next Gen Aviation Thermal Applications

Conflux’s design approach to additive manufactured cold plates aerospace

To support the advancement of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, Conflux collaborated with an aerospace leader to design a custom cold plate for their battery packs. Utilizing additive manufacturing, the project focused on reducing weight while meeting challenging thermal performance requirements—key to enabling a sustainable and competitive advanced air mobility market. The following case study goes through Conflux’s design approach to additive manufactured cold plates.

BALANCING WEIGHT AND THERMAL PERFORMANCE

The aerospace company needed a cold plate that could effectively manage heat from their battery packs while significantly reducing weight compared to conventional designs. Achieving this balance was vital to meeting the performance goals for their eVTOL aircraft, where lighter components could enhance energy efficiency, extend range, lower operational costs, and allow for greater payload flexibility.

Simulation image of VTOL aircraft

INITIAL COLD PLATE DESIGN STRATEGY

Conflux explored several design concepts to achieve the necessary weight and thermal performance balance. With Design for Serial AM (DfSAM) principles, the team developed a modular cold plate design to enable the company with easy scalability options – allowing for multiple battery packs to be cooled with a single inlet and outlet. This design achieves flexibility not possible with traditional manufacturing methods. Key strategies included optimizing wall thickness, refining internal fin structures, and ensuring alignment with required pressure drop and thermal performance targets.

Cross section of cold plate design showing fin thickness achievable with additive manufacturing.

ADDRESSING COLD PLATE FLATNESS AND WARPING

Maintaining a precise flatness tolerance was a critical requirement to ensure seamless integration and optimal thermal contact with the battery packs. By refining the additive manufacturing process and optimizing post-processing techniques, Conflux was able to surpass the necessary tolerance levels, ensuring the cold plate met stringent performance and integration standards.

Prototype print of cold plate exhibiting tight tolerances on flatness.

COLD PLATE WEIGHT REDUCTION ACHIEVEMENTS

Through iterative design improvements, Conflux achieved major weight reductions by reducing the wall thickness up to 50%, resulting in significant weight savings without sacrificing structural integrity. This resulted in a final cold plate design that is 42% lighter than initial estimates, beating the target weight reduction goals.

Weight reductions achieved through thinner wall thickness.

COLD PLATE THERMAL AND FLOW PERFORMANCE

The cold plate design incorporated optimized fluid channels and fluid manifolding to improve flow distribution. Manifold design was critical in this space and weight constrained application to ensure efficient use of the flow through the modular cold plate design. This optimization reduced temperature variation across the surface by approximately 80%, ensuring more uniform cooling to meet thermal requirements.

The un-optimized design (left) showed large temperature variations over the cold plate surface and a hot spot in the lower left corner due to poor flow distribution in this region. These issues were fixed in the optimized design (right) which had uniform temperatures over the surface and no hot spots.

Key Learnings and Applications

This cold plate project showcased significant advancements in aerospace applications, highlighting the advancements that AM provides in producing lightweight, high performing cold plates.

50% Reduction in wall thickness 42% Lighter than initial estimates 80% Reduction of temperature variation across the surface

FAQs: Why are cold plates critical in next gen aviation?

Thermal Management

Dissipating heat from batteries, inverters, and electronics to prevent overheating.

Weight Reduction

Using advanced designs to minimize weight, which is crucial for fuel efficiency.

Performance Enhancement

Supporting reliable system performance by maintaining uniform temperatures.

Space Efficiency

Providing a compact solution suitable for modern, space-limited aviation environments.

Cold Plate Applications Across Industries

The project also highlighted the potential of additive manufacturing (AM) to produce lightweight, high-performance thermal components, reinforcing its value for broader aerospace and industrial applications.

Cold plates optimized for weight and thermal efficiency have diverse applications across various industries including:

Electronics Cold Plates

Critical for efficient cooling of CPUs and GPUs, ensuring reliable performance in high-power computing systems.

Automotive Cold Plates

Essential for managing heat in electric vehicle batteries and power electronics, enhancing system efficiency and longevity.

Renewable Energy Cold Plates

Key to cooling inverters in solar and wind power systems, supporting consistent energy conversion and system stability.

Medical Devices Cold Plates

Provide effective thermal management for imaging systems and other high-power medical equipment.

Data Centres Cold Plates

Integral to rack-level cooling solutions, improving thermal control in space-constrained environments.

This case demonstrates how Conflux’s advanced cold plate design provided a tailored solution for the aerospace industry, meeting critical weight and thermal performance objectives for advanced air mobility applications.

The resulting lightweight, efficient, and compact thermal management solution not only supports energy efficiency, operational range, and cost savings but also highlights the broader potential of optimized cold plate technology. With applications spanning industries such as automotive, electronics, renewable energy, medical devices, and data centers, this project sets a new benchmark for high-performance cooling solutions in weight-sensitive and space-constrained environments.