Conflux Technology Pty Ltd

Conventional Solutions

A radiator is a commonly used heat exchanger in automotive applications to transfer heat from a working fluid to air that passes through the radiator.

While working, fluid-to-air heat exchange devices can be effective, the heat transfer from the working fluid to the air can be unpredictable due to high variations in air temperature and humidity, and air flow rate through the radiator.

The variation in heat transfer can adversely affect the temperature of working fluid being returned to the component.

Conflux Technology – Advantages

• A heat exchanger for transferring thermal energy between a first working fluid and a second working fluid.
• Enhanced surface area density to volume ratio results in high thermal exchange performance
• Monolithic structures result in significant weight reductions.
• Optimised flow design reduces pressure drop and improves system efficiency.
• Design freedom gives flexibility in form factor; geometry can be morphed to the fit the space available.

Conflux Technology Pty Ltd is an Australian company established in 2017 with 3 founding personnel, led by Michael Fuller. So far, company has filed 5-10 patent applications mainly in US, China, Australia and Japan.

Solution

• Conflux Technology provides a heat exchanger for transferring thermal energy between a first working fluid and a second working fluid.
• The heat exchanger has an outer shell that has a first port, a second port, a third port, and a fourth port.
• A set of tubes each extend within the outer shell and between the first and second ports, such that the first working fluid can flow in parallel through the tubes.
• The heat exchanger is formed by an additive manufacturing technique.

Benefits

Higher Thermal Exchange: Enhanced surface area density to volume ratio results in high thermal exchange performance

• Significantly Reduced Weight: Monolithic structures result in significant weight reductions.
• Low Pressure Drop: Optimized flow design reduces pressure drop and improves system efficiency.
• Morphed Topology: Design freedom gives flexibility in form factor; geometry can be morphed to the fit the space available.
• Continuous and Non-interrupted components The heat exchanger components are continuous and non-interrupted.

Read Also: Topology Optimization in Heat Transfer: Overview

Case Study:

The Initial Story:

As evidence of the potential of additive manufacturing (AM) in heat exchangers, this first design enabled Conflux to make its mark on the world-stage and further the progression of AM technology across many industries.

In 2014, Founder, Michael Fuller  got the grant from (The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) CSIRO and their vastly experienced Fluids Engineering Group as part of the ongoing, iterative development of heat exchanger design.

Conflux used metal additive manufacturing to create high performance heat exchangers. Using a Formula One Test Map for the development process, Conflux set about determining whether the design could make the grade within the most unforgiving environment – F1 motorsport – based on direct feedback from an international F1 team.

Results Summary:

• 3 x higher performance of heat rejection
• 1/3 pressure drop
• 22% less weight
• Optimum form factor, 55mm smaller
• Monolithic structure - integrated functions, reduced part count & assembly costs, no joints or welds

Design:

• To prove viability of our heat exchanger for a Formula One application,
• Conflux needed to design for a series of boundary conditions. This involved:
• The development of cutting-edge geometries – high surface area density
• Combined with optimized fluid pathways
• 3D surface features – that is rigorously tested to determine exactly what was possible
• To achieve best performance standards

Production Challenges:

• The walls of the heat exchanger needed to be very thin, with sub-optimal build angles and good material properties.
• This meant that they failed repeatedly but, ultimately, were able to learn from Their failures because each attempt helped establish a new baseline for parameters in the machine and design.

Post-Processing:

• Powder removal was extremely complex, requiring multiple steps to successfully produce powder-free components. However, with this challenge, They accelerated understanding of the behaviour of the powder in different environments.
• It also demonstrated optimization powder removal in future parts, as well as design tweaks, to streamline the process.
• With this design, charting new territory and, concurrently, creating a new industry baseline from early learnings and R&D for others to follow.
• Constantly challenged with not just developing a new standard in heat exchangers but also with simulating, manufacturing and post-processing a pioneering form of technology.

Result:

• With it, we overcame all design, production and post-production challenges to unlock the potential of heat exchange technology using additive manufacturing – an achievement that many deemed impossible.
• Heat transfer and pressure drop target across series of boundary conditions confidently met.
• Cutting-edge geometries accurately printed at intricate build angles.
• These lead to performance standards that went beyond which is previously attainable through conventional manufacturing.
• The vertical integration of this ‘design, simulation, build and test’ model has since proven so effective that it has become the framework for customer engagement on consecutive projects across the years.

New Benchmarks:

• A UKAS-certified laboratory for providing accredited calibration services and thermal fluid and component testing services in the UK, Young Calibrations, tasked with comparing our first patented design to a conventionally made motorsport heat exchanger benchmark.
• The design flexibility of first patented design shown to facilitate optimal placement inside a motor vehicle, which enables the merging of components resulting in less parts overall.
• Additionally, the integration of sub-components into a single point means that the assembly of the heat exchanger takes significantly less time and the chance of failure points at joints and interfaces is decreased.
• Conflux’s heat exchanger design proving that AM processes can be exploited to advance thermodynamic performance and usher in a new generation of heat exchangers.

Key findings:

An increased surface area in any given volume, which tripled thermal heat rejection and simultaneously reduced the pressure-drop by two-thirds.

A 55mm reduction in length on the heat exchanger benchmark, which effectively removed 22 percent of the benchmark’s bodyweight.

Read Also: Topology Optimization in Heat Transfer: Heat Exchanger Taxonomy

Application Areas

Aerospace

• Conflux’sheat transfer allows for greater flexibility in both design and manufacturing, leading to significant performance advantages.
• Conflux designed and produced lighter weight, higher performing  heat exchangers shows that the combination of AM expertise, simulation and design experience, is necessary to exceed customer requirements for weight reduction.

Automotive & Motorsports

• AM provides unique opportunities to increase the performance of components with geometries not achievable with traditional manufacturing methods.
• Light weighting offers first order efficiencies for both motorsport and automotive.
• Conflux creating innovative ways to increase the performance of heat exchangers through a combination of AM-enabled three dimensional surface geometries and an ever present drive for thinner walls

Defence

• AM enables Conflux to develop conformal designs with a more efficient use of space and flexible packaging options for our heat exchange products.
• Conflux creates defense AM solutions to boost performance by providing and applying it to unique heat transfer challenges.

Oil and Gas

• Oil and gas companies necessarily use large heat exchangers in order to meet their performance needs.
• AM gives Conflux the freedom to create complex geometries that provide increased performance, lighter weight, and smaller components.
• Conflux have designed and produced scalable arrays of modular heat exchangers that offer step improvements in performance while being smaller, lighter and inherently flexible.

Microelectronics

• Conflux is creating innovative ways to increase the performance of heat exchangers through a combination of AM-enabled three dimensional surface geometries and an ever present drive for thinner walls.
• It developed a range of fundamental geometries that form the basis of approach to the design of heat exchangers.

How we plan to make it comprehensive and focused?

Prepare a list of all possible shape & design, and technologies.

Find the technologies that address specific challenges or provide solutions in a specific domain of topology optimization in heat exchangers.

Iterative refinement to search queries based on the review of relevant dataset, to capture missed keywords, assignees and patent classification.

Multiple strategies will be used to capture relevant data – Assignee searches, keyword and patent classification searches, market size, recent innovations and market demand.

Target the domain from all possible angles. Prepare targeted queries for all of the following areas:

topology (shape & design), heat exchanger manufacturing method, heat exchange improving mechanism, industry, etc.

Keep the client questions in mind during the course of the project and analyze the data to extract the relevant answers – aim is to solve a specific technological problem

A collection of technical and scientific documentation on topology optimization in heat exchangers will be obtained by research, analysis and expansion of information carried out using highly specialized professional and databases – We will use the combination of patent, scientific literature and market study to gain deeper knowledge and insights.

• Identify advanced heat transfer shapes (gyroid) or methods (increase surface roughness) or manufacturing methods (Additive
• manufacturing). And to understand how these shapes are improving heat transfer (Increase in surface area, or improved flow mechanics, etc.)
• Access information on technologies ready to be used and to be applied in their own product or process

Data clustering and classification based on a taxonomy category.

Data clean up by removing noise such as references related to the points highlighted in ‘exclusion criteria’

About Effectual Services

Effectual Services is an award-winning Intellectual Property (IP) management advisory & consulting firm offering IP intelligence to Fortune 500 companies, law firms, research institutes and universities, and venture capital firms/PE firms, globally. Through research & intelligence we help our clients in taking critical business decisions backed with credible data sources, which in turn helps them achieve their organisational goals, foster innovation and achieve milestones within timelines while optimising costs.

We are one of the largest IP & business intelligence providers, globally serving clients for over a decade now. Our multidisciplinary teams of subject matter experts have deep knowledge of best practices across industries, are adept with benchmarking quality standards and use a combination of human and machine intellect to deliver quality projects. Having a global footprint in over 5 countries helps us to bridge boundaries and work seamlessly across multiple time zones, thus living to the core of our philosophy - Innovation is global, so are we !!!

Follow Us: LinkedIn, Twitter