Computational design of metadevices for heat flux manipulation considering the transient regime

Abstract

The present work introduces the optimization-based approach for the design of metadevices to manipulate the heat flux in transient regime. It consists of solving a continuous, nonlinear, constrained, large-scale optimization problem where the objective function (to be minimized) is the error in accomplishing a given heat flux manipulation task along a transient heat conduction process. The response of the metadevice is modeled by using the finite element method, and its design is characterized by a set of parameters defining the material at all the finite elements in the device. These parameters are the design variables of the optimization problem, being chosen from an admissible design set in order to guarantee the feasibility of the optimal solution. As an example, this optimization-based approach is applied to the design of a heat flux shielding metadevice. Compared to a metadevice designed under the classical thermodynamics transformation approach and intuition, the current device performs the shielding task with considerably higher success. In order to highlight the versatility of the proposed optimization-based design method, this approach is also applied to the design of metadevices to satisfy multiple different simultaneous tasks, particularly shielding and cloaking.