Proceedings of: 16th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics (HEFAT2022), 8-10 August 2022, Virtual ConferenceCooling is a crucial aspect in numerous applications where the optimal operation of electric, electronic, or electrochemical devices requires a controlled operating temperature. In this sense, metallic cooling plates are a suitable solution to dissipate heat from the surface of these equipment. The refrigeration capacity of cooling plates can be improved by circulating cold fluid along channels drilled in the metallic plate. The shape of these channels plays a critical role on the performance of the cooling plate since they affect both the distribution of temperature across the plate and the pressure drop required to pump the cooling fluid along the channel. The channel shape of a cooling plate can be optimized considering the Constructal law, which proposes the use of configurations found in nature to improve the performance in industrial applications. Following the Constructal law, a cooling plate made of aluminum, inside of which there is a channel with a shape resembling the outline of a flower, was built by a 3D printer. The performance of the plate was experimentally evaluated refrigerating the plate with various flow rates of cold water. To that end, an experimental facility was specifically designed and built to test the cooling capacity of the plate. The experimental setup consists of an enclosure inside of which the temperature of the atmosphere is controlled by a PID system connected to a thermoresistance and a heater, and a thermostatic bath to control the temperature of the cooling water at the inlet of the plate. The temperature of the plate was measured by an IR camera and the heat transfer coefficient by forced convection to the fluid were derived from the tests for both laminar and turbulent flow regimes of the fluid, obtaining values of 1703 and 3639 W/m2K, respectively, with maximum variations of 1 % for three replicates of each test, proving the high repetitiveness of the experimental procedure proposed. The average characteristic cooling time of the plate was measured to be 34.9 and 16.5 s for Reynolds numbers of the cooling flow of 1249 and 4918, respectively. Thus, an increase on the flow rate by 4 times results in a reduction of the characteristic cooling time by approximately 50 %.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by Fundación Iberdrola under the program "Programa de Ayudas a la Investigación en Energía y Medioambiente". This work has been supported by the Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid-Spain) under the Multiannual Agreement with UC3M ("Fostering Young Doctors Research", NANOCOOLEVB-CM-UC3M), and in the context of the V PRICIT (Research and Technological Innovation Regional Programme)
