Heat Transfer Properties of CuCrZr/AlSi7Mg Heat Sinks with Gradient Material and Gradient Structure Manufactured by Laser Powder Bed Fusion

The continuous increase in power density of electronic devices imposes stringent requirements on the design of lightweight, high-efficiency heat sinks. To overcome the limitations of conventional single-gradient or monomaterial heat sinks—namely, their suboptimal heat-transfer efficiency and poor structural adaptability—this study proposes a dual-gradient, triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS)-based multimaterial heat sink architecture fabricated from CuCrZr and AlSi7Mg. Thermal performance was quantified experimentally using infrared thermography, while the underlying flow-field mechanisms were investigated numerically via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations employing the standard k–ε turbulence model. With the TPMS material volume ratio fixed at 3:3 (CuCrZr:AlSi7Mg), the Z-axis gradient configuration P-Z4-5 delivered the best overall thermal performance, achieving a heat-transfer coefficient (HTC) of 1557.63 W·m−2·K−1 and a thermal resistance as low as 1.83 K·W−1 at an inlet velocity of 5 m·s−1. In contrast, the Y-axis gradient configuration P-Y3-6 yielded the most uniform temperature distribution, exhibiting a maximum surface temperature difference of only 21.5 °C under the same inlet condition. Velocity and turbulence distribution analyses reveal that the dual-gradient design enhances both the narrow-tube effect and flow-induced disturbances; furthermore, increasing the inlet velocity from 5 m·s−1 to 21.65 m·s−1 significantly intensifies vorticity-driven fluid mixing. Among all configurations evaluated, P-Z4-5 exhibited the highest j/f factor (i.e., the ratio of Colburn j-factor to Fanning friction factor), followed by P-Z3.5-5.5 and P-Z3-6. These findings establish a promising new pathway for the development of high-performance, lightweight heat sinks tailored for next-generation high-power electronics.