Effective Thermal Conductivity and Heat Transfer Characteristics of a Series of Ceramic Triply Periodic Minimal Surface Lattice Structure

Triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) structures with high surface area, high porosity, complex pore channels, and pore size distribution have great potential for application in thermal metamaterials and thermal engineering applications. To demonstrate the possibility of the use of TPMS structures as thermal metamaterials, the thermal insulation properties and heat transfer mechanisms of TPMS structures are investigated in detail. The results show that modulation of the volume fraction to within 15% by a rational geometric design indicates the possibility to obtain excellent lightweight properties. The effective thermal conductivity is within 0.25 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹, which is much lower than this component, indicating that the TPMS structure is designed to reduce the effective thermal conductivity and provide a lightweight design. However, in a high-temperature environment, reasonable structural parameters can shield the cavity radiation in the TPMS structure and play an effective role to provide high-temperature thermal insulation. Finally, based on the relationship between structural parameters and thermal insulation performance, a dynamic density TPMS-graded structure is proposed, which exhibits a better thermal insulation performance than the conventional TPMS structure both at room temperature and at high temperature.