[Submitted on 30 Jul 2026]

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Abstract:Thermal management is essential in space systems, where electronic devices must dissipate heat via radiative heat transfer. To achieve efficient designs of radiative cooling devices, structural optimization approaches such as topology optimization are required. While existing topology optimization methods have incorporated radiative heat transfer with certain simplifications, fully accounting for multidirectional mutual radiation remains challenging. To address this issue, this study proposes a density-based topology optimization method for conduction-radiation heat transfer problems that accounts for multidirectional mutual radiation. The proposed method integrates a zonal-method-based radiative heat transfer analysis incorporating a ray-tracing method into the finite element heat conduction analysis, capturing radiation effects during the optimization process. By treating the intermediate material densities that arise during the optimization as participating media, the proposed method enables a physically consistent evaluation of radiative heat transfer on implicitly represented structural boundaries. The analytical design sensitivities are derived using the adjoint method, and the accuracy is confirmed by the comparison with the numerical sensitivities obtained by the finite difference method. Numerical examples demonstrate the optimization of radiative heat sinks and radiation shields. The heat sink examples clarify how the balance between conduction and radiation governs the resulting designs, while the radiation shield examples produce multilayer insulation structures that are not obtained by conventional approaches.

Submission history

From: Shun Noguchi [view email]
[v1] Thu, 30 Jul 2026 17:03:15 UTC (5,957 KB)